Latest FBI reporitng on 2023 crime in US shows decreases in all violent crimes

The FBI this morning here released this summary accounting of violent crime in the United States in 2023:

The FBI’s crime statistics estimates, based on reported data for 2023, show that national violent crime decreased an estimated 3.0% in 2023 compared to 2022 estimates:  

• Murder and non-negligent manslaughter recorded a 2023 estimated nationwide decrease of 11.6% compared to the previous year.  
• In 2023, the estimated number of offenses in the revised rape category saw an estimated 9.4% decrease.  
• Aggravated assault figures decreased an estimated 2.8% in 2023. 
• Robbery showed an estimated decrease of 0.3% nationally.  

This AP article on this FBI data provides a lot more context:

Crime surged during the coronavirus pandemic, with homicides increasing nearly 30% in 2020 over the previous year — the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records. The rise defied easy explanation, though experts said possible contributors included the massive disruption of the pandemic, gun violence, worries about the economy and intense stress.

Violent crime across the U.S. dipped to near pre-pandemic levels in 2022, according to the FBI’s data. It continued to tick down last year, with the rate falling from about 377 violent crimes per 100,000 people to in 2022 to about 364 per 100,000 people in 2023. That’s just slightly higher than the 2019 rate, according to Deputy Assistant Director Brian Griffith of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division....

Law enforcement agencies in the biggest municipalities in the U.S. — communities with at least 1,000,000 people — showed the biggest drop in violent crime last year — nearly 7%. Agencies in communities between 250,000 and 499,999 people reported a slight increase — 0.3%— between 2022 and 2023.

Rapes decreased more than 9% while aggravated assault decreased nearly 3%. Overall property crime decreased more than 2%, but motor vehicle theft shot up nearly 13%. The motor vehicle theft rate — nearly 319 per 100,000 people — was the highest last year since 2007....

The FBI’s report is in line with the findings of the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice, which earlier this year analyzed crimes rates across 39 U.S cities, and found that most violent crimes are at or below 2019 levels. That group found there were 13 percent fewer homicides across 29 cities that provided data during the first half of 2024 compared the same period the year before.

At his Substack, Jeff Asher has some more context in a post titled "Murder Fell At The Fastest Pace Ever Recorded In 2023: Takeaways from the FBI's Crime in the United States 2023 report."  Here is the summary start to that post:

The murder decline is the largest one-year decline ever recorded, besting a 9.1 percent decline in 1996.  The 2023 murder decline combined with a large decline being seen so far in 2024 shows murder is falling faster than ever before recorded in the United States.   The 3 percent decline in reported violent crime puts the national violent crime rate (363.8 per 100k) alongside 2014 (363.6 per 100k) as the lowest level of reported violent crime since the early 1970s.