This week the F.B.I. released its annual tally of crime in the United States, and the picture it paints is troubling. In 2016, there were 17,250 homicides, an increase of more than 8.5 percent from the previous year. This comes on the heels of a 12 percent rise in 2015, bringing the total increase over two years to nearly 22 percent — the largest two-year increase in homicide in 25 years.

Violent crime — which includes rapes, robberies and assaults, in addition to homicides — is also up, but less so, rising 4 percent, after a 4 percent increase in 2015.

What to make of this two-year spike in death and violence is unclear, but you can be certain of this: Partisans on all sides will seek to spin this situation to their advantage. And that’s a problem that stunts productive conversation about solutions.

Criminal justice reformers will worry that fear of violent crime could slow the momentum of their movement. As a result, they’ll play down the data that says it’s increasing. They’ll say that it’s too soon to call this a trend, that a few neighborhoods in a few cities are driving the numbers, and remind us that overall rates of violence remain near historical lows.