Reports have cropped up across Ohio media claiming crime is down in the state throughout 2024. But new data showing missing crime data from law enforcement agencies that serve more than 1 million Ohioans casts a shadow on stark claims about Ohio’s crime rate — and still fail to account for an uptick in violence since the violent summer of 2020.
Highlights
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73% of Ohio Law Enforcement Agencies Reported Crime Data to the FBI in 2022
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Only 44% Reported Data for the Full Year
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Missing data from law enforcement agencies that serve 1 million Ohioans
Missing Data
The Marshall Project, a criminal justice watchdog group, offers a reporting tracker to see which municipalities report data to the FBI’s NIBRS. The data show fewer than half of Ohio’s law enforcement agencies reported a full year’s worth of data for 2022, and only 73% of Ohio law enforcement agencies reported at all.
Some metrics show improvement, even if it’s not possible to accurately characterize Ohio’s crime rate in light of missing data. Cleveland homicides, for instance, peaked during the violent summer of 2020 that saw violent riots in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Cleveland police investigated 192 homicides that year, compared with 165 last year.
While the Cleveland Police fully reported its data to the FBI, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office reported seven months of data to the FBI’s NIBRS. Additionally, a Cleveland.com report showing a drop in homicides in 2023 acknowledged the decrease came in the midst of increasing youth violence and 'child slayings'.
Still Accounting for 2020
However, overall reporting on crime since 2020’s crime wave has been murky. In 2020, about 2,700 agencies across the country didn’t report data to the FBI. However, that number skyrocketed after 2020’s crime wave, with more than 7,200 law enforcement agencies absent from FBI data.
This year, more than 6,000 law enforcement agencies submitted no data to the NIBRS, an improvement from 2021, but the agencies not reporting crime to the FBI is more than double 2020. 
Nationally, there is also data indicating murder clearance rates are down, while robbery, rape, and assaults are up since 2020.
"Crime is down under Biden, just like Gas prices"
— Vincent James (@davincentjames) March 13, 2024
Here's the reality:
1. Police reporting crimes to the FBI is down 20% since 2020
2. A quick look shows robbery, rape, and assault is up since 2020, not down.
3. Between 2019 and 2022, murder clearance rates fell from 61… https://t.co/Qtx3CDzcPi pic.twitter.com/yMerbFARc1
Analysis
Meanwhile, high profile cases have shocked Ohio this year: a woman stabbed a three-year-old boy to death in a supermarket parking lot in Cuyahoga County this month. An illegal immigrant previously deported seven times killed a man in Hamilton in April. A Columbus man beat his pregnant girlfriend to death earlier this month.
While shocking cases may or may not illuminate trends in overall crime, they illustrate what’s at stake in ensuring Ohio is safe. Dayton homicides were up last year. Canton leads the state in violent crimes.
Murky and missing law enforcement data complicates claims that crime is down in a time when, in the wake of the violent summer of 2020, Ohio’s social fabric, like much of the country’s, is stretched thin.
