FBI claims national murder rate is '‘lowest in modern history’

FBI Director Kash Patel said in an interview airing Saturday that the national murder rate in the United States is at its "lowest in modern history." 

Patel said there will be an FBI report in December that will show some of the latest crime statistics in the country, which will include the national murder rate that is expected to drop by double digits. 

Last year the murder rate was five per 100,000 people, down 15.8% from the year before and about one percent higher than a decade ago in 2015, according to Department of Justice data published in August.

“I’m happy to announce, finally, that one of the big targets we had for this year, obviously, was to reduce the murder rate across America,” Patel told The Epoch Times. “This FBI is going to be releasing murder rates in December, which is the lowest it has been in modern history, by double digits.”

The director also noted that his team has made 30,000 arrests since January, including 25,000 who were charged with violent crimes. The FBI has also been targeting criminal organizations that go after children, and has made 40% more espionage arrests compared to last year. 

“We are actually disrupting them,” Patel said. “We’re kicking them out of our networks, we’re bringing them to trial, and we’re putting them in prison. That’s a very powerful public display of force.”

Patel added that the increased productivity and arrests are the result of his restructuring of the agency, which has focused more on putting agents in the field rather than keeping 12,000 agents in the Washington, D.C. area. 

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.