The following content is sponsored by PragerU.
One year ago, the FBI released a data report claiming violent crime had fallen by 2.1 percent in 2022 compared to 2021, and major media outlets quickly celebrated and cited the news. Despite communities experiencing surging violence, Orwellian politicians and pundits used this data as their go-to “fact-check,” insisting that our fears are unfounded and repeatedly reassuring us that crime is actually down. It has been the perfect pre-election talking point for those eager to dismiss concerns about rising crime across America.
But in a not-so-shocking turn, the FBI quietly revised those statistics, admitting that their initial data were incomplete and misleading. It turns out that violent crime isn’t down—it’s up. A whopping 6.6 percent upward shift from their previous claims, some 80,029 violent crimes were mysteriously absent from the initial data. While these massive revisions are validating to those who have been silenced and fact-checked, they are also rather insulting.
The stealthiness of the revision, tucked away and understated in the hopes that no one would notice, practically screams that they care more about protecting a favorable narrative than they do about the actual victims. Instead of publicizing the correct data and setting the record straight, the FBI very quietly edited the numbers, adding only a small note on the FBI website acknowledging that data had been “updated.”
Mark Twain’s famous words—“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”—seem more relevant now than ever. But this really isn’t about manipulated numbers or the political agendas those numbers are designed to support. This is about real people—American citizens who are watching in desperation as their cities and neighborhoods get more dangerous, always wondering if their loved one will be a victim featured in the next news cycle. Or worse, a victim dismissed as not newsworthy.
If politicians and pundits really cared about truth and the American people, they wouldn’t simply dismiss concerns and cherry-pick data. They would have honest, meaningful conversations with those who are living in these affected neighborhoods. They would step out of their ivory towers and into the streets of America’s cities to see the effects of widespread “defund the police” and “soft on crime” movements that cannot be ignored. If you dig into what’s happening in these cities, a tragic and shocking pattern emerges about who the real victims often are—children.
In a new short documentary, “Their Lives Mattered,” PragerU shines a light on this gut-wrenching reality by having real conversations with the families of child victims who were caught in the crossfire of the crime epidemic in Chicago and sharing their stories, which have been buried beneath misleading media headlines and carefully sanitized government statistics. This film reminds us that behind the real numbers are real lives, and those lives mattered, even if the dominant narrative dictates that they be overlooked.
Violent crime continues to ravage American cities, with children and teenagers in minority communities among the most vulnerable. In 2022 alone, the year at the heart of the FBI data revision scandal, 6,190 children under 17 were killed or injured in shootings (excluding suicide), according to the Gun Violence Archive. This was a sharp rise from 5,708 in 2021, representing the highest number since the database’s inception. Tragically, gun violence overtook car accidents as the leading killer of American children.
Despite the reality of increased violent crime across America, meaningful solutions continue to be pushed aside in favor of sanitized data and political agendas. In Chicago alone, headlines in 2023 continued to report violence: “Labor Day violence: 10 killed, 34 wounded in Chicago, including 6-year-old boy,” “Chicago shootings: 37 shot, 5 fatally, in weekend gun violence across city, police say,” “Chicago weekend shootings: 12-year-old boy among 7 killed, 22 hurt,” and “75 people shot, 13 fatally, in Chicago over violent holiday weekend,” This year produced many similar headlines including, “Chicago reels from bloody July 4 weekend with 109 people shot — 19 fatally,” and victims as young as five.
What kind of country are we living in where the frequent murder of children in our cities warrants little more than a mention because it doesn’t fit a favored narrative of decreased crime? This is why projects like “Their Lives Mattered” are so important to shining light on an issue the media neglects to acknowledge.
It’s time to hold our leaders accountable, demanding that district attorneys and other local politicians focus on public safety, not progressive politics or social justice. We must demand that the media prioritize facts over propaganda. And we must reject misleading narratives in favor of caring for and about our neighbors. Only by demanding more can we begin to address the crisis of violent crime in America—and restore liberty and justice for all.
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