Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
You can’t fix what you don’t understand — and when it comes to crime, the public’s been fed a steady diet of half-truths and cooked stats.
That’s what Dr. John Lott, founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center, unpacked on Politics By Faith with Mike Slater, cutting straight through the noise about America’s so-called “crime decline.”
Table of contents
Redefining Crime, Reducing Accountability
Lott explained how cities like Manhattan, Chicago, and Philadelphia are playing word games with the data — downgrading violent felonies into misdemeanors so the FBI numbers look cleaner than the streets actually are.
He gave the perfect example: an aggravated assault (a felony) can become a simple assault (a misdemeanor) the second prosecutors decide not to charge for weapon involvement.
“When prosecutors refuse to take firearms cases and pressure police not to record weapons used, the data starts lying,” Lott said. “Crimes don’t disappear — they just vanish from the spreadsheets.”
The Real Numbers the Media Won’t Touch
According to Lott, only 40% of violent crimes and 30% of property crimes are reported to police — and that’s shrinking fast because people no longer believe justice will be served.
When only 20% of reported violent crimes in big cities result in an arrest — and just 8% if you count all violent crimes — people stop calling the cops. That’s how you get headlines claiming “crime is down,” when what’s really dropping is public trust.
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Even worse, the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows a 55% surge in violent crime during the first three years of the Biden administration — the biggest three-year jump since federal tracking began. The previous record? A 27% rise back in 2006.
“So when NPR runs with ‘violent crime is falling,’ they’re just parroting the wrong dataset,” Lott said.
When Deterrence Dies, Criminals Thrive
Lott broke it down like an economist: “If you make something riskier for criminals, they’ll do less of it.” Raise arrest rates. Enforce convictions. Keep repeat offenders off the street.
He pointed to cases like a South Carolina man arrested 39 times — 25 for violent felonies — who still managed to walk free long enough to kill again. Or the Charlotte train stabbing, where a repeat offender released early for “racial equity” murdered a 21-year-old woman just months after getting out.
That’s not reform — that’s neglect.
“Criminal justice ‘equity’ sounds noble,” Lott said, “but when 90% of black murder victims are killed by black offenders, who exactly are you helping by refusing to punish repeat violent criminals?”
In D.C., 96% of murder victims are black. During one stretch of federal intervention under Trump, murders virtually stopped for weeks.
“Whose lives do you think were saved?” Lott asked.
The Bottom Line
Lott’s message was simple: crime policy should be about saving lives, not saving narratives. And pretending violence doesn’t exist just because it’s underreported or redefined doesn’t make anyone safer.
“Deterrence works. Enforcement works. And data only helps if you’re honest about it,” Lott said.
For more hard numbers — not headlines — visit crimeresearch.org.
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No surprise, the Left WANTS crime, so they can establish a Socialist/Fascist society where they take guns and freedoms and run the place.
With regard to crime rates and repeat offenders, the US sentencing guidelines lines commission has a matrix for setting sentencing. They consist of 43 levels of seriousness. The guide lines have become so convoluted due to congressional meddling, they have provided judges with extremely wide paths for sentencing convicted criminals. The 2005 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Booker, which made federal sentencing guidelines advisory rather than mandatory had caused wildly varied sentencing in the US. While the common 3 year arrest rate metric for recidivism has fallen to about 39% for those released in 2012, a decrease from approximately 50% for those released in 2005, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Those statistics are nothing to be celebrated.
Three-Year Re-arrest and Re-conviction rates for those released in 2008, 66% were re-arrested within three years, 48% had an arrest leading to a conviction, and 49% returned to prison. This data must be reviewed and applied to sentencing on much shorter intervals. In addition, the primary indicators for repeat offenders, such as Re-arrest rates, which vary by the type of crime, must carry more weight. For example, those imprisoned for property crimes like burglary or larceny, and for possessing illegal weapons, have higher rearrest rates. Older individuals are less likely to repeat than younger people.
Offenders who did not complete high school have been found to be rearrested more often than college graduates, and an individual’s past criminal history is closely correlated with their likelihood of reoffending. These must be used as the foundational primary guidelines accounting for sentencing. As an example of the disparity in sentencing, minority and youth sentencing has become politically taboo based solely on the high numbers of incarceration, rather than the crime itself. Another area for reform is for those convicted of a felony, or domestic violence, or the possession of a weapon during the commission of a crime, SHALL HAVE A SEARCH WARRANTY ISSUED IMMEDIATELY TO HAVE ALL WEAPONS CONFISCATED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT.
I want to clear up something about the Charlotte NC train stabbing. DeCarlos Brown Jr. was arrested on January 19, 2025 for Misuse of 911 (NCGS 14-111.4). That is a class 1 misdemeanor. The most time a person can get for that is 120 days. January 19,2025 plus 120 days means in even if he had gotten maxed out by a judge he would have been released on May 19, 2025 and therefore would have been out to kill Ms. Zarutska.
The murderer had been arrested 14 times in North Carolina . Charges included assault , robbery , and illegal possession of a firearm . Any of those charges would have kept him where he belonged , behind bars .
The robbery and gun charge were the same incident and he got the max active sentence. He did his time on that charge. There is no law that would have kept him incarcerated on the day he murdered her.
Doubt
It is public record. Go to North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections website and click Offender Public Information Search.
problem is truth don’t fit the narrative the left uses