Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Statement on FBI’s Quarterly Uniform Crime Report

The Justice Department issued the following statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on the release of the FBI’s Quarterly Uniform Crime Report, which shows a decrease in violent crime and property crime in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same time period last year:

“This data makes clear that last year’s historic decline in violent crime is continuing.

In the first three months of this year, violent crime has decreased by over 15 percent compared to same period last year, and murder has decreased by over 26 percent.

This continued historic decline in homicides does not represent abstract statistics. It represents people whose lives were saved — people who are still here to see their children grow up, to work toward fulfilling their dreams, and to contribute to their communities.

When I became Attorney General over three years ago, we knew that grappling with the violent crime that surged early in the pandemic would be one of the greatest challenges we would face at the Justice Department. That is why we have poured every available resource into working with our law enforcement and community partners to drive down violent crime. But we know there is so much more work to do, and that the progress we have seen can still easily slip away. So, we will continue to deploy our technological and prosecutorial resources to identify and prosecute the principal drivers of gun violence. We will continue to invest in the essential programs that allow police departments to hire more officers. We will continue to build the public trust essential for public safety. And we will continue to support the evidence-based community violence intervention initiatives that save lives.

Our work will not be done until all Americans feel safe in their communities.”