According to new data released by the FBI this week, violent crime rates in America continue their steady but dramatic decline, ongoing since 1994. There were 1.16 million overall incidents of violent crime in 2013, which is the lowest total since 1978, when the population was just 222 million (compared to today's 317 million). Reports of negligent manslaughter were the lowest since 1968.
But there's one type of violence that is bucking the trend: civilian deaths at the hands of police. The FBI tallied 461 felony suspects killed by police in 2013, the highest total in two decades. And while FBI data is adequate to demonstrate a rising trend in police killings, it is notoriously incomplete: The data is all self-reported by police departments using a wide variety of methodologies, and it only includes felony suspects. One estimate based on media reports puts the number of civilians killed by police in 2013 as high as 1,700.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Texas arrests midwife on felony abortion chargesSpeed Read Maria Margarita Rojas and an employee at one of her clinics are the first to be criminally charged under Texas' near-total abortion ban
-
South Carolina to execute prisoner by firing squadspeed read Death row inmate Brad Sigmon prefers the squad over the electric chair or lethal injection, his lawyer said
-
Mexico extradites 29 cartel figures amid US tariff threatSpeed Read The extradited suspects include Rafael Caro Quintero, long sought after killing a US narcotics agent
-
Leonard Peltier released from prisonSpeed Read The Native American activist convicted of killing two FBI agents had his life sentence commuted by former President Joe Biden
-
Ex-Sen. Bob Menendez sentenced to 11 yearsSpeed Read The former New Jersey senator was convicted on federal bribery and corruption charges last year
-
Police ID driver of exploded Cybertruck, can't see motiveSpeed Read An Army Green Beret detonated a homemade bomb in a Tesla Cybertruck in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas
-
Teenage girl kills 2 in Wisconsin school shootingSpeed Read 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow fatally shot a teacher and student at Abundant Life Christian School
-
Penny acquitted in NYC subway choking deathSpeed Read Daniel Penny was found not guilty of homicide in the 2023 choking death of Jordan Neely
