Violent Crime Sees Record Drop
W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 27 -- Violent crime dropped for the sixth straight year in 1999, taking overall crime rates to their lowest in 27 years, the U.S. Justice Department said today.
The Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics said the total number ofnon-lethal violent crimes, which includes rape, robbery and assault, fell by more than 10 percent in 1999 from the year before, a record one-year drop, according to the bureau’s National Crime Victimization Survey.
Today’s report confirmed the overall drop in crime across the country has continued. However, it also confirmed that some demographic groups are more likely to be victims of violent crime than others. The most vulnerable groups for violent crime are men, African-Americans, households earning less than $7,500 a year, and those under 19 years old.
Property crime also fell 9 percent, led by a drop in burglaries and household thefts, continuing its downward trend from 1974.
An estimated 28.8 million violent and property crimes took place last year, compared with 44 million in 1973 when the bureau first released the annual survey.
According to the report, which surveyed 101,000 people over age 12 from 49,000 households across the country, many people don’t see much point in going to the police. Almost half of all violent crime victims didn’t even report what happened to them. Also, only 67 percent of violent crimes involved a weapon.
Clinton Claims Some Credit
As with earlier and similar reports President Bill Clinton hailed the report as evidence his administration’s anti-crime strategy was working.
“This news is further proof that the Clinton-Goreadministration’s anti-crime strategy of more police on ourstreets and fewer guns in the wrong hands has helped create thesafest America in a generation,” Clinton said in a statement.
Clinton used the survey’s release to pressCongress to approve funding for administration proposals thatwould put an additional 50,000 community police officers on thestreet, hire 1,000 new federal, state and local prosecutors andrecruit 500 new firearms agents.