A thread on the FBI's Uniform Crime Report for 2019 which was released this AM https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019

Murder was essentially even.

If you want to get technical, murder rose nationally (+51 total murders, +0.3%) but the nation's murder rate fell thanks to population growth (-0.2%).

73.7% of murders with a reported weapon were committed with a firearm in 2019. That's the highest share on record.

61.4% of murders were cleared in 2019 nationally. That's down from the past two years but up from 2016.

The number of arrests fell as did the number of arrests for drug law violations.

Still up from 2015's "low" but down almost 100,000 relative to 2018.

The main takeaway from this year's report is how the 9 month delay in publishing can make UCR largely irrelevant for understanding and responding to emerging crime trends.

And finally, in December of 2019 I wrote:

"The F.B.I. won’t release official crime data on 2019 until September 2020, but the nation’s murder rate most likely did not change much this year relative to 2018."

This shows the value in sampling big cities to measure the trend