An editorial by legal scholar Jonathan Turley was published in The Hill recently, in which Turley spewed LIES in support of one of Donald Trump’s BIG LIES:

The Justice Department’s released survey found that, under the Biden administration, there has been a significant increase in crime. Violent crime was up 37 percent from 2020 to 2023, rape is up 42 percent, robbery is up 63 percent…

It’s bad enough when the con artist and SOCIOPATH Donald Trump spews LIES like this, but for a legal scholar to engage in such LYING (or idiocy?) is intolerable, so I gave Professor Turley a piece of my mind in an email this evening:

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Jonathan Turley,

According to the George Washington University website, you are:

a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law.

I don’t understand how a legal scholar can FAIL to understand basic crime statistics, but you apparently don’t know your head from a hole in the ground on this issue, based on the false claims that you recently made in an opinion piece for The Hill called “With fact-checks like these, how does truth stand a chance?”.  You wrote this:

The Justice Department’s released survey found that, under the Biden administration, there has been a significant increase in crime.  Violent crime was up 37 percent from 2020 to 2023, rape is up 42 percent, robbery is up 63 percent…

Such a report from the Justice Department would have made headlines, but there have been no such headlines!  So, I smell a big steaming pile of BS.

Why don’t you provide the TITLE of this survey by the Justice Department?  Did you actually read any such publication?

It took me only about one minute to find the latest UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation publication, and, as I expected, it completely contradicts your statements.

In case you don’t know where to look, here is the URL:  https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#

Here is page 23 of that report:

Here is the relevant data from the table at the bottom of page 23:

According to this report,  the murder rate was 6.8 in 2020 and DECREASED to 5.7 in 2023.

According to this report, the rape rate was 40.3 in 2020 and DECREASED to 38.0 in 2023.

According to this report, the robbery rate was 73.4 in 2020 and DECREASED to 66.5 in 2023.

The claims you made in the opinion piece about crime rates increasing are completely and utterly false.

Please issue a correction to your pathetic editorial piece in The Hill.

Bradley Bowen

bbowen737@msn.com

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UPDATE & CORRECTION FROM 10/13/2024

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Re: The Violent Crime Rate is NOT Up!!

Sun 10/13/2024 7:55 AM

Jonathan Turley,

Your editorial in The Hill titled “With fact-checks like these, how does truth stand a chance?” is deceptive and misleading, as I will soon argue in an editorial of my own.

However, in order to be honest, objective, fair, and truthful, I must admit that I made a mistake in my initial criticism of your editorial.  I made the strong assertion that some specific statements about violent crime in your editorial were “utterly and completely false”.  Although I was correct to point out that data from the FBI’s UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting Program) contradicted those specific statements you made, that evidence was NOT sufficient to show that those statements were “utterly and completely” false.  

That is because there is another important source of information about crime in the US, namely NCVS (National Crime Victimization Surveys) conducted by the Department of Justice.  Those surveys have data that provide some support for some of the specific statements you made.  So, I was wrong to make the strong assertion that some of your specific statements about violent crime were “utterly and completely” false.

I will not argue here that your editorial was deceptive and misleading, but will let you know when I publish my own editorial that will support that conclusion.

My critique of your editorial will include data from both the FBI UCR Program and from NCVS reports.

Bradley Bowen