FBI: Detroit has nation's highest violent crime rate, Chief Craig disputes data

The FBI has released new numbers that show violent crime in Detroit has spiked more than 15 percent in 2016. The numbers show 13,700 violent crimes which include murder, rape, assault, and robbery. Chief James Craig says they don't tell the whole story.

Detroit Police Chief craig is disputing the latest crime stats, even though the numbers came from the Detroit Police Department's system. The FBI shows Detroit is the most violent large city in the country, again.

"The data, yes, it came from our system but we're also saying the data coming out of the system is not accurate," Craig said. "If you're telling us we're at this level because of the data and you're not willing to make adjustments because well it's too late we're past the deadline - I find that problematic."

The Chief is at odds with the Michigan State Police and the FBI who compiled the data from Detroit's old software system called CRISNET. Craig has said for years that the data isn't accurate and that the city's new $9 million system is far more complete. However, that data isn't being used by the FBI.

The new data that shows Detroit's violent crimes for 2016 total 12,842, almost a full thousand lower than the FBI's number. Chief Craig says the headlines from the FBI report are not an accurate depiction of crime in the city. He does say, however, that there's still a lot of work to be done.

"I've said often times that 300 murders - and while it's a 40 year low - is still too high for a city of our population. But the key is since 2013 we continue to trend downward," he said.

The FBI released these numbers from 2016:

Population - 669,673
13,705 - violent crimes
303 - murder/non negligent manslaughter
579 - rape
2,941 - robbery
9,882 - aggrevated assault
31,630 - property crime
8,787 burglary
13,938 larceny
8,905 motor vehicle theft
554 - arson