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2003 Crime Rate Steady at 30-Year Low
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Sep 12, 6:07 PM (ET)
By CURT ANDERSON
WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's crime rate last year held steady at the lowest levels since the government began surveying crime victims in 1973, the Justice Department reported Sunday.
The study was the latest contribution to a decade-long trend in which violent crime as measured by victim surveys has fallen by 55 percent and property crime by 49 percent. That has included a 14 percent drop in violent crime from 2000-2001 to 2002-2003.
"The rates are the lowest experienced in the last 30 years," Justice Department statistician Shannan Catalona said in the report. "Crime rates have stabilized."
The 2003 violent crime rate - assault, sexual assault and armed robbery - stood at 22.6 victims for every 1,000 people age 12 and older. That amounts to about one violent crime victim for every 44 U.S. residents.
By comparison, there were 23 violent crime victims per 1,000 people in 2002. In 1993, the violent crime rate was 50 per 1,000 people, or about one in every 20 people.
Murder is not counted because the Bureau of Justice Statistics study is based on statements by crime victims. In a separate report based on preliminary police data, the FBI found a 1.3 percent increase in murders between 2002 and 2003 - from 16,200 to about 16,420.
The new survey put the rate for property crimes of burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft in 2003 at 163 for every 1,000 people, compared with 159 the year before. The slight increase was not considered statistically significant.
A decade ago, there were about 319 property crimes per 1,000 people, the study said.
There are numerous possible explanations for the sharp, sustained decrease in crime. But experts say the fact that crime rates have leveled off confounds earlier studies that attributed it to such things as a more mature, less violent drug trade or police tactics that focus on high-crime areas.
James Lynch, professor at American University's Department of Justice, Law and Society, said the reason that crime is down so broadly is difficult to pinpoint.
Two recent possibilities, he said, are a prison population at a record 2.1 million and the terrorism fight's deterrent effect on more routine street crime.
"Some of the mobilization for terrorism issues may have put a damper on crime," Lynch said. "It has a chilling effect on a whole lot of stuff."
The low crime rate also has made the problem much less of an issue in national political campaigns. It is almost never mentioned in campaign speeches by President Bush or Democrat John Kerry, and fewer people than in past years now list crime as a top concern in opinion polls.
The National Crime Victimization Survey is based on annual interviews by Census Bureau personnel with about 150,000 people at least 12-years-old. The FBI does a separate crime study based on reports it receives from thousands of law enforcement agencies nationwide.
Other highlights of the Justice Department report:
_In 2003, one-quarter of all violent crimes were committed by an offender armed with a gun, knife or other weapon.
_Violent crime rate has dropped in every income category by at least 40 percent between 1993 and 2003.
_Property crimes tended to occur more often in 2003 in the West (207 crimes per 1,000 households), among people who rent rather than own (206 crimes vs. 143 crimes per 1,000) and in urban areas (216 crimes per 1,000) rather than suburban or rural areas (145 and 137 per 1,000, respectively).
_Men were more often crime victims in 2003 than women, except sexual assaults. About 29 blacks per 1,000 were crime victims, compared with 21.5 per 1,000 whites and 16 per 1,000 all others. Crime victims were more often 24 years old or less.
