THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 18, 1996 TAG: 9609180507
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 60 lines
Continuing a downward trend that began in 1994, the number of violent crimes in the United States fell more than 9 percent last year, the government reported Tuesday.
``We have moved from gridlock to solutions that work,'' said Attorney General Janet Reno.
There were nearly 9.9 million violent crimes in 1995, 1 million fewer than the previous year, according to the preliminary estimates by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The final report will be out next spring.
Crime has become a dominant issue in the presidential election campaign. Republican Bob Dole on Monday proposed an anti-crime package while President Clinton basked in the endorsement of a major police organization.
Clinton, campaigning in Michigan Tuesday, called the 9 percent drop in violent crimes the largest in a decade.
``I'm not declaring victory against crime,'' he said. ``I'm just saying we're moving in the right direction and what we need to do is not to abandon the present course, but to bear down and do more of it.''
The picture of violent crime in America last year, compared with 1994:
Rape decreased almost 18 percent, from 432,700 to 354,670.
Robbery fell 14 percent, from 1.3 million to 1.1 million.
Assault declined 8 percent, from 9.1 million to 8.4 million. Attacks with injuries fell 24 percent, from 678,500 to 516,500.
Purse snatching and pocket picking were down 18 percent, from 488,930 to 402,590.
The number of property crimes declined 5.6 percent last year, down 1.7 million to 29.3 million. The rate of burglaries, theft, and theft of motor vehicles was 288 per 1,000 households, down from 308 per 1,000 in 1994.
The decline in the number of violent crimes began two years ago, interrupting a rising trend that existed since the mid-1980s, said Jan Chaiken, director of the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The economy and the aging of the population figure in the reductions, say criminologists such as Jack Levin of Northeastern University in Boston.
``The baby boomers have matured into their 30s and 40s,'' he said. ``They are mellowing out, perhaps aging gracefully, and they are graduating out of high-risk violence and property crimes into white-collar crimes, fraud and embezzlement.''
In Philadelphia, James Fife, Temple University criminal justice professor, noted that ``right now we are at the point where there aren't a lot of people in the crime-prone years, 16-24. But we can expect in the next 10 years crime rates will increase significantly.'' At the same time, he said, ``The better the economy, the less violent we are.''
Fife also praised Clinton's efforts, saying, ``Clinton is the first U.S. president in my lifetime who actually listened to the criminologists and cops. He also has more former state and local police and criminal justice officials in policy-making positions than any other president.''
Criminologists consider the Bureau of Justice Statistics survey to be a reliable indicator of crime in America, since it includes crimes not reported to police. More than 60 percent of all crimes are in that category.
About 100,000 crime victims were interviewed for the survey, which does not track murders.
KEYWORDS: CRIME U.S. STATISTICS by CNB