Crime rates are improving. Too bad crime data is not.

There’s encouraging news about crime rates in the United States. After a spike in both violent crime and property offenses after the pandemic-and-protest year of 2020, statistics show that crime is reverting to 2019 levels. That’s according to a newly released midyear report by the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank, based on monthly offense rates for 12 violent, property and drug crimes in 39 cities that have consistently reported such data over the past six years.