Many Americans are persuaded by persistent claims that crime is rising, even when they are not. Critics say the media’s rampant coverage of violent crime has helped to warp their perceptions.

When US President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, DC on Monday and claimed during a press conference that the city was overrun by “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” critics were quick to point out that crime had actually been falling in the nation’s capital.

Violent crime in DC has dropped by 26% since this time in 2024, which was already a 30-year low, according to data from the police department.

During that same surreal press conference, Trump threatened to have federal law enforcement occupy several other US cities – Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, New York and Chicago.

“We’re not gonna lose our cities over this,” Trump said on Monday morning. “And this will go further,” he said, referring to his federal crackdown.

Trump said the cities he plans to target are “bad, very bad,” concerning crime. But he didn’t cite any specifics. Likely because there aren’t any.

After temporary upticks in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, crime rates continued the precipitous decline that has been going on for decades. According to nationwide data released on 5 August by the FBI, both violent and property crime rates continued to drop throughout 2024, reaching their lowest points since at least 1969.

Like with DC, in every single one of the cities he named, crime is actually falling, in some cases reaching historic lows.

Contrary to Trump’s  characterisation that “lawlessness…has been allowed to fester”, the Los Angeles Police Department reported last month that homicides had fallen by 20% in the first half of the year and that the city was on pace for the lowest number of killings in more than 60 years.

Violent crime is on the  decline more generally across the city, with fewer aggravated assaults, gun assaults, sexual assaults, domestic violence incidents, robberies and carjackings this year than in the first half of 2019, when Trump was still in his first term.

Baltimore, which Trump has derided as “filthy” and “so far gone” on crime, is likewise the  safest it’s been in 50 years, with a historically low homicide rate that has  declined by 28% over the past year alone. Violent crime has more generally decreased by 17% from the previous year, while property crime has decreased by 13%.

In April 2025, the city  saw just five homicides, the fewest in any month since 1970. In  Popular Information, journalist Judd Legum noted how this dramatic shift has followed a change in approaches to policing in the city under Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott:

“Scott, who was first elected in 2020, has brought the city’s homicide rate down by treating violent crime as a public health crisis. That means treating violent crime as a symptom of multiple factors, including racism, poverty, and past violence. Addressing violent crime as a public health issue involves going beyond arresting people after violence is committed and taking proactive and preventative measures…

“Under Scott, Baltimore has fought violent crime not only through policing but through a network of programs that provide support for housing, career development, and education.”

Chicago has likewise seen a historic drop in homicides, with  fewer this year than in any previous year in the past decade and a 30%  decline in both shootings and homicides from the previous year. Violent crime on the whole,  meanwhile, is 25% lower than it was in 2019 – a bigger drop than many other cities have seen.

Mid-year data from Oakland's police department shows that overall crime is down 28% from the previous year, with the most significant drops in robbery, burglary, and theft crimes. Homicides, meanwhile, dropped 24%. This decrease  continues the trend from 2024, when homicides also dropped by double digits.

Trump's ally in Gracie Mansion notwithstanding, crime is also down considerably in New York City. From January to May 2025, the city  experienced the lowest number of murders in recorded history, marking an astonishing 46% decrease from the previous year.

And while — unlike most cities — overall crime is still higher in the Big Apple than it was before the pandemic, that comes at the tail end of a total collapse in its violent crime rate over the past four decades. In 1990, there were 30 homicides per 100,000 people, compared with just 3.2 homicides it is on track for in 2025.

Despite these trends, many Americans are persuaded by persistent claims that crime is rising, even when they are not.

In October 2024, even as crime rates were cratering around the country, 64% of Americans still told a  Gallup poll that they believed it was on the rise. And even when Americans believe crime is down where they live, they  tend to believe it is increasing nationally.

Alec Karakatsanis, a civil rights attorney and author of the book  Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News, wrote on X on Monday that the press’s incessant decontextualised coverage of violent crime has helped to lend credibility to Trump’s narrative that it is rising.

“How is this possible? What lays the groundwork for such ludicrous claims?” he asked. “The news media has been fearmongering for years.”

According to a survey by  Pew Research in 2024, local news covers crime more than any other topic, with the exception of the weather. And although violent crime occurs at about one-fifth the rate of property crime, Americans are shown news stories about it at about the same rate.

Karakatsanis says, journalists at major news outlets like The Washington Post have uncritically spread the claim that crime is “out of control” despite its precipitous decline – a narrative that has been seized upon by Republicans hoping to enact authoritarian measures.

The Associated Press has been criticised for its coverage on Monday of Trump’s deployment of the National Guard, which Mother Jones reporter Dan Friedman  said on Blue Sky “manages to treat the objective fact of declining crime in DC like it’s a difference of opinion” between Trump and Democratic Mayor Bowser.

“No publication, not the AP, not The New York Post, needs to accept Trump’s claim that crime in DC suddenly constitutes an emergency as plausible and ignore the actual reasons for this authoritarian move,” he added.

“If we get to walk back from the brink,” Karakatsanis said, “there must be a rigorous reckoning among people of good will about how mainstream institutions tolerated, accepted, peddled, and even celebrated the lies and mythologies of the far-right.”

Republished from Common Dreams, 12 August 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.