What the Media Gets Wrong About Crime

This week, guest host Billy Binion is joined by Jeff Asher, a nationally recognized crime data analyst and former CIA employee who leads the analytics firm AH Datalytics. He also publishes independent crime statistics and analysis through his Substack, Jeff-alytics.

Binion and Asher discuss the sharp decline in murders over the past several years and why 2025 may have recorded the lowest murder rate in modern American history. They examine how crime statistics are collected, why the public often distrusts official data, and how media coverage and political incentives shape the national conversation about crime.

The conversation also explores what might be driving the drop in violence, the limits of what policymakers can claim credit for, and why perception continues to lag behind reality even as crime falls.

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, and scholars who are making the world a more libertarian—or at least a more interesting—place by championing free minds and free markets.

0:00—Introduction

0:51—Misconceptions about crime

3:15—Crime rate trends

6:19—Washington, D.C., crime data

14:39—Impact of trauma care on crime rates

20:58—Do smaller cities deserve more attention?

25:12—Crime in the 1990s

34:20—Mass deportations and crime data

40:03—Spending and crime data

44:40—Clearance rates

48:51—The disconnect between data and public perception

51:14—Media coverage of crime

58:35—Asher’s experience in the CIA

• Producer: Paul Alexander
• Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser