Pubdate: Tue, 29 Oct 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Fox Butterfield

U.S. CRIME RATE ROSE 2% IN 2001 AFTER 10 YEARS OF DECREASES

For the first time since 1991, serious and violent crime in the United 
States increased last year, the F.B.I. reported yesterday.

The bureau's annual Uniform Crime Report found that murder, the crime that 
is best measured because it is least likely to go unreported, rose 2.5 
percent nationwide over the figure for 2000. At the same time, robberies 
climbed 3.7 percent, burglaries 2.9 percent, petty thefts 1.5 percent and 
motor vehicle thefts 5.7 percent.

Rape also increased by 0.3 percent, the report said, while aggravated 
assault dropped 0.5 percent. Figures for these two crimes are considered 
the least reliable of the seven that go into the F.B.I.'s index because of 
problems with reporting and measuring them.

Over all, crime rose 2.1 percent across the nation, the report said. 
Experts and law enforcement officials said the overall increase, after a 
decade of drops in the crime rate, appeared to reflect several factors: a 
faltering economy, cuts in welfare and anticrime programs, as well as fewer 
jobs available, more inmates returning home from prison, an increase in the 
teenage population, and police resources diverted to antiterrorism efforts.

In addition, the experts said, after 10 years of decreases, in which the 
crime rate dropped to its lowest level since the late 1960's, it would have 
been hard for it to keep falling.

"We all knew that the marked downward trend of crime in the 90's could not 
continue indefinitely," said Alfred Blumstein, a professor of statistics 
and criminology at Carnegie Mellon University. "The crime rate really came 
down very far, and one would have hoped it was an indication of 
improvements in society, but that didn't happen. The economy is a big part 
of the story."

James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University, 
said: "The great crime drop of the 1990's is over. It was wishful thinking 
that it would continue forever. Crime is very resilient."

Regionally, there were sharp differences in overall crime last year. The 
rate rose 3 percent in the West, 1.1 percent in the Midwest and 0.3 percent 
in the South. In the Northeast, crime decreased 1.9 percent. And four 
Eastern cities showed a drop in murders in 2001.

New York had the biggest decline, with 649 murders in 2001 compared with 
673 in 2000, a decrease of 3.6 percent. Philadelphia had a decrease of 3.1 
percent, Washington 2.9 percent and Baltimore 1.9 percent.

By contrast, in Las Vegas murders rose 48 percent in 2001, to 133 from 90 
in 2000, while in Phoenix the number jumped 37.5 percent, to 209 from 152 
in 2000. San Antonio recorded a 17.6 rise in murders last year, to 100 from 
85 in 2000, and St. Louis rose 19.4 percent, to 148 from 124 in 2000.

In Phoenix, Detective Tony Morales, a police spokesman, said much of the 
increase was caused by increased smuggling of drugs and illegal aliens on 
the border with Mexico. Criminals have learned how to circumvent efforts by 
federal law enforcement to crack down on illegal activity at the border, he 
said, "so our crime rate is going back up."

"Narcotics is the No. 1 motive in our homicides," Detective Morales said. 
"We have instituted new programs to combat narcotics, but the numbers have 
started to creep back up anyway.

"Another thing that has tripled in the past few years is home invasion 
robberies, mostly Hispanics on Hispanics, and people are reluctant to call 
the police," Detective Morales continued. "So the real numbers are probably 
much higher."

The F.B.I. report measures arrests reported by 17,000 local police agencies 
around the nation to the bureau.

One striking increase was the 3.7 percent jump in robberies, the first 
increase since 1991. Among the reasons was a sudden increase in bank 
robberies in many parts of the country.

Over all, robberies caused losses estimated at $532 billion in 2001, the 
report found. Bank robberies had the highest average loss, at $4,587 per 
offense.

The homicide figures did not include the 3,047 deaths as a result of the 
terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The F.B.I. published them in a 
separate section. If they had been included in the regular total of 
murders, they would have had a substantial impact on the homicide rate, 
since there were a total of 15,980 other murders last year.

Criminologists have long tried to tease out the factors that caused the 
crime drop of the 1990's, but cannot do so with great accuracy. In the same 
way, it is next to impossible to quantify accurately the different 
variables causing crime to start back up again.

One factor that can be measured, Professor Fox said, is that the number of 
teenagers is now increasing 1 percent a year, after a decline in the 
1990's. People in their late teens and early 20's are in the prime years 
for committing crime, statistics show.
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