A law enforcement expert is poking holes in the now-former Biden administration Department of Justice’s repeated claims that violent crime sank to a 50-year record low, saying the agency “manipulated data” to reach its conclusion.

In 2024, the Biden administration repeatedly claimed that violent crime was at a 50-year low, based on FBI statistics. The FBI defines the following as “violent crime”: murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

But Ken Alexandrow, a security expert who served for 26 years as a Nashville, Tennessee, police officer, said the former administration “manipulated data” to reach a certain outcome. 

“The way crime statistics are developed is that police departments around the nation send all their category 1 crimes, which are violent crimes, to the FBI. And then the FBI develops nationwide statistics,” Alexandrow said. “But the changes happen when a new administration comes in, and they change the reporting conditions.”

Then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris are shown at the White House on April 11, 2022. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Biden admin previously shifting crime stats

In 2022, the Biden administration’s FBI quietly updated its crime data to show an increase in violent crimes despite previous data showing violent crimes had fallen that year, which was touted as a victory for the administration.

The data was lauded by Democrats and the media as part of a turning point for crime woes in the U.S. after the crime wave of 2020, when defund-the-police protests and riots swept the nation and the pandemic’s stay-at-home orders upended daily life.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the DOJ, the New York City Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Chicago Police Department for comment.

Fox News’ David Spunt and Emma Colton contributed to this report.