ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180068
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Overall rates of violent crime changed little between 1993 and 1994 but the number of sexual assaults dropped 33 percent, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
Property crimes continued a 15-year decline, falling from 32.2 million in 1993 to 31 million in 1994, according to the department's National Crime Victimization Survey.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole accused the administration of sugarcoating the statistics. He said it also showed that such crimes have increased by more than 5 percent since Clinton took office in January 1993.
In 1994, Americans were victims of an estimated 10.9 million violent crimes, including 6.6 million simple assaults, 2.5 million aggravated assaults, 1.3 million robberies and 430,000 rapes or other types of sexual assault. The survey excludes murder because it isn't possible to interview the victims.
The figures were essentially the same in 1992 and 1993, after falling 20 percent between 1981 and 1986 and then rising 15 percent from 1986 through 1991, said a report released by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
But sexual assault - which includes molestation and other crimes short of rape and attempted rape - fell 33 percent, from 173,000 to 117,000 between 1993 and 1994, according to Patsy Klaus, a bureau statistician. Bureau spokesman Stu Smith said the reason for the drop wasn't known.
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