FBI data show crime rate dropped in nation last year
9/15/2009WASHINGTON — Murder and manslaughter dropped almost 4 percent last year, as reported crime overall fell around the country, according to new data released yesterday by the FBI.
The 3.9 percent decline in killings reported to police was part of a nationwide drop in violent crime of 1.9 percent from 2007 to 2008. Rapes declined 1.6 percent, to the lowest national number in 20 years — about 89,000.
The statistics are based on crimes reported to police, who then forward the information to the FBI.
In Toledo last year, there were 20 homicides, an increase from 13 the previous year.
So far this year, there have been 16 slayings in the city of Toledo, including one that occurred over the weekend.
Nationwide, there were 14,180 murder victims last year.
“What has been impressive has been how flat all the violent crime rates have been since 2000. To a large degree that's still the case, but the striking change this year has been murder,” said Alfred Blumstein, a professor of criminal justice at Carnegie-Mellon University.
The figures show that crime has come way down since its peak in the early 1990s.
“These are rates we haven't seen since the 1960s, even though the change from year to year has been rather small,” Mr. Blumstein said.
Property crimes declined overall, by 0.8 percent, but that was driven mostly by a 12.7 percent drop in car thefts. The other major categories of property crime — burglaries and larceny — both rose.
Regionally, the South had the highest crime rate, with 4,315 reported violent and property crimes per 100,000 people.
The region with the lowest crime rate was the Northeast, which had 2,620 reported crimes per 100,000 people.
Typically, crime is expected to rise during economic hard times, but Mr. Blumstein said last year's data were too early in the economic cycle to reflect that, because the most serious economic impacts came toward the end of 2008.