
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 2, 1995                   TAG: 9502030016
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

MURDER RATE UP, FOR KIDS

CONTRARY TO POPULAR belief, the U.S. homicide rate is about the same as it was in the '30s. But today, children are more likely than ever before to be victims.

While America's homicide statistics may cause increasing fears, a study released Wednesday shows that the country's murder rate is about the same as it was six decades ago and that the rate for minorities actually has decreased in the past two decades.

But the homicide rate for children under 14 is ``at or near record highs for the post-World War II era,'' the study said. And rates for pre-schoolers 4 and younger have risen to their highest levels in 40 years.

``The fears that we're losing our youth to violence is true,'' said Carol J. De Vita, director of publications for the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research group that conducted the study. ``There are clear signs of increased preschool risk. They are becoming more vulnerable to violence much earlier.''

The bureau's study, titled ``Homicide in the United States: Who's at Risk?,'' confirms some long-held perceptions about homicide in America, but challenges a few of the prevailing ones.

``Everybody looks back and says, `The good old days were better.' But we're now able to get a better focus on our larger history of homicide,'' De Vita said.

There's no debating one fact: The United States is still the murder capital of the world. Overall, there are about 10 murders per 100,000 persons in America, far higher than any other industrialized nation. That translates into about 70 murders per day. But the rate is the same as it was in 1933, although it fell through the late 1950s.

The gap in homicide rates between whites and nonwhites has narrowed since the early 1970s, the report said. Then homicide rates for minorities were 10 times higher than those of whites. By 1990, the rate had fallen to six to seven times higher.

Part of the difference, the study said, was because of an increase in homicide rates for whites in that time. The rate for white males increased from 9.2 per 100,000 in 1969-71 to 10.2 in 1989-91. But the rate for nonwhite males dropped from 74.6 in 1969-71 to 59.4 in 1979-81 and 53.7 in 1989-91.

De Vita said that the distribution of offenders had not changed much through the years. The majority are between ages 15 and 24, the study said; just over half are black, and 42 percent are white. Most homicides were intraracial, with blacks killing blacks and whites killing whites.

The study, conducted by two researchers, F. Landis MacKellar and Machiko Yanagishita, analyzed National Center for Health Statistics data from 1920 to 1993, the most recent available, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report statistics from 1964 to 1992. Rates were adjusted for differences in age groups over the years.

by CNB