Biden inherits a country in a crime wave from 2020, and we’ve seen record drops in murder rates and a generally strong decrease in crime starting in 2022.
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/28/us-murder-violent-crime-rates-drop
But alot of voters think Trump is better on crime than Biden.
This, like the economic issue, is another situation where the reality is inverted from the political images.
Well, from a realistic standpoint, there is little that the president and executive branch in general can do directly to impact crime, particularly at the state and local level. So Biden getting “traction on crime” would be more perception that reality even though crime has gone down. The White House does have some measure of impact on the economy, and economic factors are definitely a driver on crime, but that is an indirect relationship.
From a perception standpoint, Biden (who is very much a “law & order” politician and has never endorsed any kind of “defund the police” ideals) is seen as being weaker mostly because Fox News et al has repeated this claim over and over again, while Trump makes febrile claims about what he would do to criminals (which, in his mind, includes immigrants, protesters, political opponents, and essentially anyone who speaks against him) that make him sound ‘tough’ even though he would wilt like a three day old bouquet if a panhandler approached him begging for pocket change.
Stranger
Whenever you dig down into the machinery of MAGA, you inevitably meet three people:
David Dunning and Justin Kruger
and
That’s my take, anyway – the endless cavalcade of pure bullshit, accepted entirely without question by a profoundly credulous cohort.
It’s sort of a no-win situation for Biden in a way on some issues. People want him to do something about things like crime and the economy, but there’s a limit to what he can do and it’s hard to let people know about them. So the perception is he hasn’t done enough. Add in right-wing propaganda…
Again, as I posted in your other thread:
Because 40% of the voters are being lied to over and over and over again,and they suck up these lies with delight because it conforms to their preconceived (and wrong) notions.
In the past, news media was interested in reporting factual information. This factual information trickled down to those voters who were interested enough to watch the news on TV or read a newspaper.
Now, social media and other “news” is more interested in getting clicks/viewers. So they report complete and utter bullshit. They spread lies about crime being rampant. About whole cities burning down. Complete crap.
And this social network “news” is carefully curated so these folks only see this one side of the (bullshit) story.
Biden or other news sources can produce factual information (like in your OP) until the cows come home. They can shout it from the rooftops. But these 40% will never, NEVER hear or see it. They are in their information bubble, safe from any facts that do not conform with the bullshit lies they have been fed.
You make an extremely strong - and depressing - argument.
My own mother is a Trumper. And she only watches Fox News for her “news”. I know she’s being lied to. But there’s no way to break through it.
In everyone here’s lifetime, being “tough on crime” has always been code for cracking down minorities. There’s only one candidate who loudly projects that he’ll punish minorities, and there you go.
Exactly what I was going to say.
When I quote stats showing crime is down the MAGAs respond with headlines about mass shoplkifting.
Now sure- that is an issue. Bad for the shore owner.
But IMHO- mass murders are somewhat worse. 
‘Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion , man.’ 
So here’s more ammo to show crime is down. It’s possible that violent crime is at a 50 year low, depending on where the FBI final stats fall for 2023.
I think part of the problem is that violent crime such as murder is almost always between people that know each other. Might be domestic, might be gang or other criminal, and even the more random stuff tends to be consolidated in specific parts of town. I’m not worried that I’m going to be randomly shot or mugged or something. I’m more worried that I’m going to go out and some asshole will have smashed the windows in my car or, even worse, that it won’t be there at all. That’s also fairly low probability but more likely. And it’s that kind of property crime or the perception of other criminal activity like shoplifting making it impossible to buy toothpaste without an attendant that sticks in the day to day.