A drop in crime rates? Thanks, Biden!

This is the Weekend Edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a roundup of the most popular stories Bloomberg Opinion publishes each week based on [Bloomberg]( This is the Weekend Edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a roundup of the most popular stories Bloomberg Opinion publishes each week based on web readership. [I Didn’t Think Biden Affected Crime Rates. I Was Wrong.]( — Justin Fox The first-quarter US crime statistics just [released]( by the Federal Bureau of Investigation were a doozy, in a good way. Every single main crime category was down by double-digit percentages from the same period a year earlier. That followed on smaller, almost-across-the-board (auto theft was the lone exception) crime declines in the FBI’s preliminary data for 2023. I included the caveat “FBI Says” in the chart headline because the agency’s crime statistics haven’t been super-reliable lately. One issue has been a new crime-reporting system that many local law enforcement agencies took years to switch over to, although most have by now. Another is the lack of quality control apparent whenever one digs into the FBI’s data for individual police departments (and [finds]( obviously incorrect information), which makes it hard to take the national numbers too seriously. Still, other sources of crime data point to similar if somewhat-less-precipitous recent declines. The Major Cities Chiefs Association’s [latest report]( on violent crime in 58 large US cities and 10 counties showed a 7.7% overall decline in the first quarter of 2024, with homicide down 17.3%, rape 16.6%, robbery 3% and aggravated assault 8%. AH Datalytics’ [running tally]( of murders in 266 cities showed an 18.2% year-on-year decline as of early this week, which if it held up for the full year would both be the biggest one-year drop on record (the record in this case going back to 1960) and result in the lowest US homicide rate since 2014 and fifth-lowest on record. Read the [whole thing](. [Nvidia’s Explosive Growth Masks AI Disillusionment]( — Parmy Olson [Hey, China, That Ship You’re Ramming Is American]( — Andreas Kluth [There Is No Shame in Being Chinese]( — Shuli Ren [What a College Exam Scandal Says About Modi’s India]( — Andy Mukherjee [China Will Struggle to Undo US Dominance]( — Daniel Moss [Biden Is Giving Red Districts an Inconvenient Gift: Green Jobs]( — Liam Denning, Jeff Davies, Elaine He, Carolyn Silverman and Taylor Tyson [London’s Race to the Bottom Is a Big Gamble]( — Matthew Brooker [QXO Doesn’t Have Enough Stock]( — Matt Levine [Saudi Consumption — Not Production — Is Key to Peak Oil]( — Javier Blas More From Bloomberg Opinion Here’s what we’ve been listening to and watching this week. - Matt Levine’s [Money Stuff: The Podcast]( is out now. This week: dreams of going to trader school, a fake takeover and a real but weird takeover. - Hurricanes get names, but heat waves don’t. Mark Gongloff says we should start [classifying heat waves as disasters](, too. - A Donald Trump victory in November would also be a [victory for Trump’s mob](, says Nia-Malika Henderson. Joe Biden must make that clear to Black voters. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](