According to the FBI’s Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, violent crime declined 4.4 percent nationally, while property crime decreased 6.1 percent, according to a press release.
Based on statistics voluntarily submitted by 11,700 law enforcement agencies, the percent changes were calculated from corresponding months from January to June in 2008 and 2009.
Offenses that constitute violent crime include murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. According to the preliminary report, “murder declined 10.0 percent, robbery fell 6.5 percent, forcible rape decreased 3.3 percent, and aggravated assault declined 3.2 percent.”
Regionally speaking, violent crime as a whole went down 6.1 percent in the South, 3.4 percent in the Midwest, 3.3 percent in the West, and 2.2 percent in the Northeast.
Property crime, which includes offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft, also declined nationally. Motor vehicle theft decreased 18.7 percent, larceny-theft 5.3 percent, and burglary dropped 2.5 percent for the two six-month periods.
Across the U.S., property crime decreased 8.4 percent in the Midwest, 7.0 percent in the Northeast, 6.7 percent in the West, and 4.3 percent in the South. Of these four regions, only the South showed an increase for a specific property crime offense—burglaries went up 0.7 percent.
In terms of urban-suburban areas, according to data by population group, violent crime decreased 7.0 percent in cities with populations of one million or more while property crimes declined a hefty 7.7 percent. However, cities with populations of 10,000 to 24,999 saw an increase in violent crime of 1.7 percent.
In total, violent crime decreased 3.8 percent in non-metropolitan counties and 2.1 percent in metropolitan counties. Property crime decreased at a greater percentage—9.8 percent in non-metropolitan counties and 7.4 percent in metropolitan counties.
Moreover, arson, calculated separately from other property crimes, showed an 8.2 percent decline when compared with 2008 statistics from the same period.
Between 2005 and 2006, violent crime saw an increase of 3.7 percent, property crimes had a decline of 2.6 percent and arson increased 6.8 percent. Figures between 2007 and 2008 saw a decrease of 3.5 percent for violent crimes, 2.5 percent for property crimes. The 2008-2009 data has seen the greatest decline of recent years at 4.4 percent decline for violent crime nationally and 6.1 percent drop for property crime. Arson rates also continued its downward trend at -8.2 percent.
To see the FBI’s statistics, visit http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/2009prelimsem/index.html.
