When the Trump administration set up a federal task force to address crime in Memphis, Tennessee, last month, it cited crime data that didn't match statistics from the city's police department.

While a White House press release from September says violent crime rose in Memphis in 2024, Memphis Police Department data shows violent crime went down.

"Murder is at a six-year low, aggravated assault is at a five-year low and sexual assault at a twenty-year low," the MPD said in a press release last month.

Can both be true? Technically, yes.

Same city, different statistics

The White House drew on FBI "Crime in the U.S." data that shows over 15,000 violent crimes in Memphis in 2024, thousands more than what the city reports in the same time period.

Two factors help explain the d

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