Mr. Vice President.
Biden has been playing the rape card, arguing that if the federal government does not subsidize police union contracts which states and local governments cannot afford, more women will get raped.
This is part of a theme, with Biden earlier this month claiming that rapes were up in Flint, Michigan because of a decrease in police.
But as Andrew Stiles at NRO documents, Biden’s numbers were not even close to the truth, as rapes actually have declined:
Biden’s remarks echoed comments he made earlier this month in Flint, Mich., where he suggested that violent crimes could continue to increase if Congress did not pass the president’s proposal. “In 2008, when Flint had 265 sworn officers on their police force, there were 35 murders and 91 rapes in this city,” he said. “In 2010, when Flint had only 144 police officers, the [number of murders] climbed to 65 and rapes — just to pick two categories — climbed to 229. In 2011, you now only have 125 shields. God only knows what the numbers will be this year for Flint if we don’t rectify it.”Putting aside the crude, inflammatory nature of his rhetoric, it turns out that Biden’s numbers are incorrect. According to statistics compiled by the FBI, the figures cited by the vice president are slightly off, but not egregiously so, when it comes to the size of the police force and the murder rate in Flint. According to the FBI data, the city employed 201 police officers in 2008 and 132 officers in 2010. There were 32 reported murders in 2008, which rose to 53 in 2010. With respect to the rape figures, however, Biden is way off. FBI data show that the incidence of reported forcible rapes actually dropped, with 103 rapes reported in 2008, but just 92 in 2010. Hardly the 150 percent increase Biden cited.
Update 10-21-2011: The Washington Post (h/t John Hayward) fact checker gives Biden Four Pinnochios (“A Whopper”) for the falsehood.
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