Violent Crime’s Downturn Continues Survey Finds Drop Of 10 Percent In ‘96
Violent crime in America continued its pronounced downward trend in 1996, dropping by 10 percent from the year before, the Justice Department reported Saturday.
Aided by this decline, overall crime victimization - a category covering violent and property offenses - stood at the lowest level since the government began its door-to-door tabulation of law-breaking in 1973.
“All over our country crime is dropping,” President Clinton said in hailing the decreases as part of his Saturday radio address. “Responsibility and respect for the law are on the rise.”
The data, collected by the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics in a survey that interviewed about 100,000 people comprising a representative sample of the national population, measure crimes reported to police and those not reported.
The report estimated 2.7 million violent crimes were carried out last year - a rate of 12.4 per 1,000 U.S. residents 12 years old and older. This compared with 3 million violent offenses in 1995 - a rate of 13.8 per 1,000.
Violent crime as counted by the National Crime Victimization Survey includes rape/sexual assault, robbery and assault, but not murder or manslaughter because the survey often relies on interviewing victims.
The FBI’s unified crime reports, a separate measure of crime based on reports to state and local police across the country, said last month that the murder rate dropped 10 percent between 1995 and 1996.
The FBI reported a 6 percent nationwide drop in 1996 in overall violent crime, based on data from law enforcement authorities.
The Justice Department survey found that during 1996, about 27.4 million household property crimes were attempted or completed, a rate of 266 per 1,000 households. That compared with 29.5 million during 1995, or 291 such crimes per 1,000 households.
“This remarkable drop in the crime rate is no accident,” Clinton said, adding that “community policing is at the center of this success.”
By region, residents of the West were most likely to be victims of violent crime. Among those 12 or older, the crime rate in the West was 51.5 per 1,000 persons, compared to 43.7 per 1,000 in the Midwest, 37.7 per 1,000 in the Northeast and 37.5 per 1,000 in the South.
Households in the West also had the greatest risk of property crime, which comprises theft, motor vehicle theft and burglary. According to the report, the rate for the West was 345.6 per 1,000 households, compared to 259.6 per 1,000 for the South, 249.6 per 1,000 for the Midwest and 215.2 per 1,000 for the Northeast.
The report gave no breakdown of statistics by state or city.
The Justice Department survey also found that blacks are now more likely than whites to report a violent crime to police.
“By itself, this is a very interesting statistic, because it suggests that changes in the (racial) compositions of police departments and in policing have united them with minority communities more than in the past,” said Gerald M. Caplan, dean of the McGeorge Law School in Sacramento, Calif.
The survey also found that:
Last year, four in 10 violent crimes and three in 10 property crimes were reported to the police.
Persons ages 12 to 15 and 16 to 19 suffered higher rates of violent crime than those 25 or older. And those 12 to 19 had a violent crime victimization rate 20 times higher than those age 65 or older.
Roughly half of the victims of nonfatal violent crime knew their offender.
xxxx VIOLENT WEST By region, residents of the West were most likely to be victims of violent crime.