"You look at Charlotte," Donald Trump said at Sunday's debate. "You look at Baltimore. You look at the violence that's taking place in the inner cities, Chicago. You take a look at Washington, D.C. We had a increase in murder within our cities, the biggest in 45 years."
Is there a surge in violence across American cities? It's true that major cities saw more homicides in 2015 than the year before. But context is important. That surge is more like a blip in the larger picture, which shows a drastic drop in murder over the past 25 years.
SEE MORE: We're Seeing Less Violence, So Why Is America More Afraid?
And progress in cutting crime is even more clear when you look at rates across the U.S. — not just in major cities. Violent crime has plummeted in America and is trending further down.
