CNN host Kasie Hunt and liberal commentator Karen Finney said Tuesday that it didn’t feel like crime was down in their communities, despite the FBI’s newly released statistics showing violent crime had gone down in 2023.
“I think it is important to talk about the declines in violent crime. The challenge though, I think on the issue is, whereas those statistics are correct, in our daily lives, we’re still like, I hear in D.C., we‘ve got carjackings. We’ve got people getting mugged and then middle of the day,” Finney said.
“It doesn’t feel like crime is down in a lot of places,” Hunt said.
The FBI released statistics on Monday that found violent crime had decreased overall by 3% in 2023 from 2022. Murder, rape, aggravated assaults all decreased in 2023, according to the data. However, motor vehicle theft increased in 2023 by 12.6%.
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While Finney said decreased murder rates should be celebrated, she still expressed concern.
“But it is the crime that we interact with on a more day-to-day basis that I think makes us feel like it’s not down. And I think that’s the challenge,” Finney added.
Axios reporter Alex Thompson noted that carjackings did go up and pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The other thing I think the reason why the feeling is because you saw a huge spike during COVID and the fact is that we‘ve seen a steady decline, but now crime is only about back to where it was in 2019, which is why I think that the vibes, the feeling is because we have this spike because of the pandemic,” Thompson said.
Hunt added that while a person’s feelings on crime have a lot to do with what they read and watch every day, “I get warnings to not rent certain classes of cars because they get stolen all the time.”
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Earlier in the segment, Republican strategist Brad Todd suggested Vice President Kamala Harris did not want to make the election about crime.
“I think this is a very dangerous thing for Harris to talk about. She has a philosophical disconnect with the center of the electorate on it. She said we needed to reduce incarceration. She said we need to stop thinking that putting more police and the street makes us safe. I don‘t think she wants October to be about crime,” Todd said.
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