Missoula Researcher Makes National Headlines Over FBI Crime Data
Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - If you’ve been watching national news over the past week, the President of the Crime Prevention Research Center Dr. John Lott has revealed new FBI crime data that has questioned the credibility of several major national news agencies.
I spoke with Dr. Lott late Thursday night about what he uncovered, and the impact that information has made in national news.
Dr. John Lott Published Revised FBI Numbers Showing Rising Crime Rates
“Basically what happened was that before they (the FBI) had claimed that violent crime had fallen in 2022 by about 2.1 percent, but when you looked at the new data that they had it had gone up by 4.5 percent, and that's a pretty significant change,” began Dr. Lott.
Dr. Lott provided more updated national crime numbers.
“Here we're talking about,” he said. “A net change of over 80,000 violent crimes. We're talking about a change of 1,699 murders in one year. We're talking about over 7,000 rapes, over 33,000 robberies, over 37,000 aggravated assaults, and 198,000 property crimes, including 54,000 motor vehicle thefts.”
Dr. Lott Said the FBI Revisions Show Crime Rising Instead of Falling
Dr. Lott’s criticisms focus on news media that in his view were being selective in the numbers they wished to report.
“The reason why I was focusing on it was because that's what the media was only willing to report,” he said. “I think the only reason why they were willing to report that and not the National Crime Victimization data, is because it gave them the result that they wanted, so when I saw that, in fact, the data that they've been using for the last year for all these headlines actually moved in the opposite direction, not as dramatically as the National Crime Victimization Survey, but still was positive. I decided to eventually go and write it up and try to explain to people what the issues were at Real Clear Investigations.”
Dr. Lott said he spoke with a contact at a major news outlet and asked a simple question.
READ MORE: Missoula’s John Lott Testifies Before U.S. House on Gun Violence
The Crime Prevention Research Center is Headquartered in Missoula
“If you guys had done a report and believed that you had made a mistake in the previous year's data that changed it from, let's say, negative to positive, would you have mentioned that in the press release? And he said, Yeah, of course, we would have had to mention that we had made a mistake.”
Dr. Lott asked an obvious question directed at the national news media.
“If I were to tell you, ‘look, the FBI has been telling people for a year that crime fell for a year, and it's been a major part of the news, and now they admit that it's increased over that period of time, that they've changed how they've counted these things’. Wouldn't you think that would be a big news story? I mean, you've had all these headlines for the last year saying crime (rates) are falling, and all those headlines now are wrong.”
Dr. Lott appears on a regular basis on our KGVO Talk Back show to share his research and answer questions from our listeners.