US Crime Rates : Interesting Crime Facts

Summary: In the United States the most popular crime rate measure are statistics published each year by the FBI. The US crime rates present many interesting crime rate facts.

In the United States, one of the most widely accepted and used crime rate measure are statistics published each year by the FBI. The FBI crime rate stats are based on numbers of crimes reported to local police throughout the United States. Local police departments in communities with at least 10,000 residents are required to keep track of several types of crimes, and report to the FBI.

In fact, in 2004 alone, over 17,000 local agencies reported their crime statistics to the FBI Crime Rate program. These agencies cover 94 percent of the U.S. population. With such a high percentage of the US population being accounted for, the national average crime rate reported by the FBI is generally considered a highly accurate US crime rate estimate. However, it is only an estimate. Besides the national standard FBI crime rate, it is difficult to determine the crime rate trends in the U.S. because the criteria for calculating the other crime rate changes over time and deem to be inconsistent.

It is widely recognized that not every crime that occurs will be reported to the police. For example, it is estimated that only as few as 50% of rapes that occur in the US are actually reported. Thus, the National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, attempts to measure the number of crimes which occur, but are not reported to the police.

There are two primary indices for crime reporting which are divided into violent and non-violent crimes. The violent crime index includes statistics on homicides, serious violent crimes, forcible rapes, assaults, and robberies. The non-violent crime index, also referred to as the “property crime” index, includes statistics on burglaries, larcenies (thefts), motor vehicle thefts, and arsons. Other notable breakouts of types of crimes are the gender of the victim, whether guns were involved, whether drugs were involved, race related, gang related, domestic, non-domestic, how many arrests are made just to name a few.

In order to appropriately compare different areas by compensating for population differences, both violent crimes and nonviolent crimes report crime on a per capita basis, usually expressed as the ratio of crimes reported per every 100,000 persons. Because it is possible to obtain both the national average and the statistics for a specific local area, one can easily determine whether a particular local area has a high or low overall crime rate, simply by comparison to the national average.

While the overall crime rate numbers are reported by the FBI as a national average, it should be noted that certain demographic and geographic considerations do come into play. In general, it is typical for crimes to be more highly concentrated in urban, economically disadvantaged areas. It was also once widely considered as fact that drug use contributed greatly to the overall incidence of crime, as drug users would naturally turn to crime to support their habit; however, the correlation has not borne out over time, as the overall number of drug users nationwide has not decreased, while the overall crime rate has gone down.

Moreover, young persons, minority groups, and financially disadvantaged persons have a higher incidence of both commission and victimization. In fact, it has been reported that, in the U.S., in 1998, nearly 33% of Black men aged 20-29 were either in prison, in jail, on probation, or on parole, and, on average, nearly 70% of all prisoners are non-Whites. A report released by the Department of Justice in February 1997 noted that of the crimes studies for the report, 56% of the arrested suspects were White, 42% Black, and 2% were “other races”; however, Hispanics were included in the numbers of suspects considered to be “White”.

The report also noted that rape victims were approximately evenly divided between Whites and Blacks, and that it was typical (about 88%) for forcible rape victims and their rapists to have been from the same race. In 2004, and again in 2005, the incidents of forcible rape with a White rapist and Black victim was reported at 0.0%; in contrast, in 2005, if the victim was White, there was a 33.6% chance that the rapist was Black – whereas in 2004, that number was only 8.3%.

Another very interesting crime stat is the larger the police presence, the more crime rates go down. For example, in New York City during the 1990’s the crime rate for violent crimes dropped by 35% interestingly enough the population of the police force from 1991 to 1998 was increased by 35%.

In general, the property crime index parallels the overall U.S. crime rate, but the violent crime index does not. The violent crime rate rose during the 1960s and 1970s, but not to the same extent as the non-violent crime rate; however, the violent crime rate reached its height at a much later time (1991, whereas the property crime rate peaked in 1980). At its peak, the property crime rate was in excess of 5,000 crimes per 100,000 persons, while the violent crime rate stayed below 800 at its height. The indication from this is that property crimes affect the total U.S. crime rate more than the more severe but less frequent violent crimes.

In the late 1960s through the early 1970s, the crime rate in the U.S. rose sharply. During the rest of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s, the US crime rate reached an all-time high. There are many factors which are considered to have contributed to this increase, including: protests centering on the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the addition of crime statistic reports from Alaska and Hawaii into the national average, the upswing in racial militant groups, and the creation of “criminal-friendly” rules by the Supreme Court, including the Miranda case.

The overall U.S. crime rate has decreased dramatically since 1991, and, by 2004, it had returned to 1970 levels (3982 crimes per 100,000 residents), with the homicide rate at the lowest point since 1965, and, between 2000 and 2005, remained at an all-time low (5.5 to 5.7 homicides per 100,000 persons). This has been generally attributed to a range of considerations, from an aging population to mandatory sentencing laws.

There was a short period of “rebound” in the property crime rate, following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. This has been attributed in large part to the economic instability that resulted from the attacks. Violent crimes, however, dropped by 9% in 2001 as a whole, and this decrease is also considered to be, in large part, due to a record low number of assaults, perhaps also in reaction to the 9/11 attacks.

Current research on the crime rate trend shows it spirally downward. In conclusion, as the population grows, one would think that the crime rate would grow as well. However, statistics show that the crime rate, since the early 1990’s, has actually gone down and has gone down significantly.

Additional Interesting Facts about Crime Rate Trends in the U.S:

• Males are victimized by strangers.
• Females are victimized by people they know.
• Murders of young children are almost always committed by a family member.
• Almost half of all murders of all persons are committed by a family member.
• Over half of violent crimes are committed during the day.
• Two-thirds of rapes occur during the night.
• More crimes are committed on the street than in a person’s home.

Increased crime rates are seen in crimes committed against persons who are not at work or at home. They are engaging in some type of leisure activity, activities where the victim’s “guard” is down or distracted by their surroundings.