New FBI crime data shows violent crime in Kentucky dropped by 6.3% between 2023 and 2024 and is now 0.9% lower than it was in 2019 before a spike in offenses during the pandemic. This decline is an even bigger one-year reduction than occurred nationally (4.5%) and further refutes false claims of a crime wave used to justify harmful new policies at the state and national levels.
The data shows one-year declines in Kentucky in each of the four types of violent offenses broken out in the data:
- Homicides: -4.8%
- Rapes: -9.5%.
- Robberies: -9.3%
- Aggravated assault: -4.7%
Rape is 11% below 2019 levels and burglary is 25% below. Aggravated assaults and homicides have not yet dropped below pre-pandemic levels.
Property offenses in Kentucky also dropped by 12.7%, compared to 8.1% nationally. All three types of property crimes went down:
- Burglaries: -16.6%
- Larcenies: -9.9%
- Motor vehicle thefts: -19.9%
Unfounded rhetoric perpetuating fears about a surge in crime have been used to justify harmful criminal legal system policies that lengthen sentences, criminalize poverty and drive up immigrant detention. The evidence suggests these policies could actually undermine the drop in crime shown in the FBI data and make our communities less safe, as will recent federal actions that cut funding from programs such as Medicaid and Department of Justice programs that reduce violent crime.
