Leonard Sipes

Everyone wants credit for falling crime. Few can explain why Americans still don’t feel safe.
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You don’t win the public by preaching to the converted. You win by telling the whole story to everyone else.
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The FBI reports one crime per incident, but reality is rarely that neat. Victims, data, and undercounts tell a bigger story.
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New jail data shows a rise in pretrial detention and older inmates, while weekend incarcerations decline which seems to signal shifts in bail policy and public safety priorities.
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FBI stats say crime is down, but fear is rising. Leonard Sipes examines why Americans don’t feel safer despite the data.
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This article addresses a recent 2024 FBI report on cybercrime. It also challenges the latest full overall crime report from the FBI in 2023, stating that property crime decreased by 2.4 percent and that property crime also decreased considerably for the first six months of 2024. The numbers tell a very different story. 
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How can anyone make sense of crime in America? Is it time to change how we collect and present crime statistics?
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Americans’ confidence in the police increased eight percentage points over the past year to 51%, the largest year-over-year change in public perceptions of 17 major U.S. institutions measured in Gallup’s 2024 annual update. The American public rates many institutions harshly. There are a wide variety of institutions and professions that are taking a beating. Policing does relatively well in Gallup (2025) and other reports of citizen satisfaction.
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Per the US Department of Justice, the overwhelming majority of what we call crime is not reported to law enforcement, most crimes are not solved, and prosecutors dismiss a high number of cases; thus, data indicating that illegal immigrants don’t show up in official records through arrests and incarcerations offers little proof that they are law-abiding.
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Criminal offenders gravitate to people, places, and things perceived as easier targets with successful or bigger payoffs. The disabled have much higher rates of violence.
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The overwhelming percentage of offenders released from prison are arrested or incarcerated again per the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
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Considering there are approximately 50-60 million police-civilian contacts a year, what could go wrong?
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) will soon be a significant part of the lives of people in law enforcement and the rest of the justice system. AI has the potential to remake law enforcement and the entire justice system.
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You, your spouse, and your children interact daily with people who have criminal histories. Acknowledging this and evaluating potentially menacing or uncomfortable situations keeps us safe from crime.
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Most in state and local justice systems find USDOJ material difficult or impossible to find, read, and comprehend. Getting answers to common crime questions is tough. This article explains why and offers solutions. Finding a trusted expert who will summarize the data and give you both sides of any issue seems to be the solution.
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