President Joe Biden on Wednesday celebrated large drops in crime rates across the U.S. last year during a White House meeting with police chiefs from major cities.
The event offered Biden the opportunity to thwart criticism from Republicans who paint Democrats as weak on crime, Reuters reports.
"Last year, the United States had one of the lowest rates of all violent crime in more than 50 years," Biden told top police officials from cities including Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Detroit, Buffalo, New York; Milwaukee, Charlotte, North Carolina; and DeKalb County, Georgia.
Violent crime rates dropped sharply last year, including a 12% decline in homicides nationally from 2022 to 2023, according to a crime analysis by AH Datalytics, after spiking during the first two years of the pandemic.
