UK agency disputes Trump tweet on rising crime, terrorism

The British agency cited by President Trump in an early-morning tweet linking rising crime in the U.K. to Islamic extremism disagrees with his assessment of the data.

“Just out report: “United Kingdom crime rises 13% annually amid spread of Radical Islamic terror,” Trump tweeted. “Not good, we must keep America safe!”

But the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics told The Washington Post on Friday that the study cited by Trump actually shows no link between violent crime and terrorism.

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“The simple answer,” a spokesman told the newspaper by phone, “is that our statistical release bulletin yesterday made no link between terrorism and violent crime.”

In a written statement, another spokesman for the agency explained that police in the U.K. are responding to growing levels of crime — most notably sex crimes, which rose 19 percent — due to “significant under-recording” in previous years.

“Today’s figures suggest that the police are dealing with a growing volume of crime,” the statement read. “While improvements made by police forces in recording crime are still a factor in the increase, we judge that there have been genuine increases in crime — particularly in some of the low incidence but more harmful categories.”

One data point that was affected by terrorism was the number of attempted murders, which rose 59 percent in 2016. That rise was due to two terror attacks that struck in Manchester and London last year, which were responsible for 70 percent of the increase.

According to the survey, the biggest jump in crime actually occurred in instances of “violence without injury,” or nonviolent crimes, which increased by more that 20 percent last year. Crimes labeled as “violence with injury” rose by 10 percent, suggesting that the U.K.’s crime spike is more tied to nonviolent instances.

Trump has frequently targeted Europe’s perceived lax terror and immigration laws as a way to drive support for his policies. 

On Wednesday, a federal judge halted the administration’s third attempt at banning travel from certain nations, arguing it “plainly discriminates based on nationality.”