Crime trends
Crime trends refer to the patterns and changes in crime rates over time, providing critical insights for policymakers and law enforcement agencies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) compiles these trends through the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), which track major crime categories known as Part I offenses, including violent crimes like murder, robbery, and assault, as well as property crimes such as burglary and theft. Due to the challenges of underreporting, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) was established to gather data directly from the public about their experiences with crime.
Historically, crime rates in the United States saw a significant rise from the 1960s to 1980, peaking in 1980. However, crime rates, particularly violent crime, have generally declined since the early 1990s, reaching levels not seen since the early 1970s. In 2022, the violent crime rate was reported at 23.5 victimizations per 1,000 individuals aged twelve and older, while property crime rates stood at 101.9 incidents per 1,000 households. The trends reveal that assaults are the most commonly reported violent crimes, whereas theft significantly contributes to property crime rates. Understanding these trends is essential for addressing crime effectively and ensuring community safety.
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Crime trends
Policy makers such as legislators, mayors, and police chiefs need up-to-date, accurate information to make their decisions. In recognition of that need, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) created the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to collect information from the states about the numbers of crimes reported to the police. The basic crime categories tracked most regularly since the late twentieth century are known as Part I, or Index offenses. They include murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. Because of special rules surrounding the reporting of arson, arson rates are generally not reported along with other Part I crimes. To control for variations over time in the numbers of crimes due to changes in the population, this information is often reported in the form of rates: numbers of offenses per 1,000 or 100,000 population.
Recognizing that not all crimes are reported to the police, the U.S. Department of Justice began the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) in 1973. This survey, conducted annually through telephone calls to a random sample of 90,000 households, asks all persons of the age of twelve and older in each household about their victimization experiences. Generally, the NCVS expresses victimization rates as numbers of victimizations per 1,000 population—also of persons aged twelve and older.
According to he 2022 Criminal Victimization report, the overall rate of violent victimization declined from 79.8 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 1993, to 23.5 per 1,000 in 2022. Victimization rates dropped dramatically since the early 1990s, with temporary spikes in 2006 and 2012. As UCR data in has shown, crime rates in the United States rose steadily throughout the 1960s and 1970s and peaked in 1980, when 5,950 offenses per 100,000 population were reported. The victimization data show a slightly earlier peak, with 602 victimizations reported per 1,000 population aged twelve and older.
After a brief decline through the early 1980s, the crime rate again approached its 1980 peak in 1991. Between then and 2003, the overall crime rate dropped by slightly more than 30 percent, approaching lows not seen since the early 1970s.
The Composition of the Crime Rates
In the NCVS data, violent crimes included forcible rape, robbery, assault, and domestic violence. The violent crime rate for 2022 was 23.5 per 1,000 people. Property crimes include burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft. The vast majority of offenses reported to police since 1960 have been property crimes; the rate in 2022 was 101.9 per 1,000 households, up from 90.3 in 2021.
Reported incidents of violent crime in the United States steadily rose to a 596.6 incidents per 100,000 population in 1980. Then, after a brief decline, they again rose to reach a high of 758.1 in 1991. The national victimization survey data closely track the official report trend, though they did not reflect as steep a post-1980 increase.
Further examining the violent crime composition revealed that not all violent crimes equally contributed to the rate. In 2022, the bulk of violent crimes reported to police were assaults (19.1 per 1,000); rape and sexual assault accounted for 1.9 per 1,000 of the violent crime rate.
Similar patterns can be observed in the property crime data. Reported incidents of property crime in the United States followed the same trend seen in the violent crime rates, steadily rising to a peak rate of 5,353.3 incidents per 100,000 population in 1980. After a brief decline, they rose to a new high of 5,139.7 in 1991. As with violent crime, the national victimization survey data closely tracked the official report trend. Again, the victimization data showed a peak victimization rate of 553.6 per 1,000 population (age twelve and older) in 1975, five years before the UCR peak in 1980. According to the NCVS, the overall property crime rate in 2022 was 101.9 per 1,000.
Further examining property crime composition reveals that, while not all property crimes contributed equally to the rate, the distribution is not nearly as uneven as that seen in violent crime. The major contributor to the nation’s property crime rate was theft. The rate of motor vehicle theft was 5.5 per 1,000, a rise from 2018, when the rate was 4.3 per 1,000).
Bibliography
Blumstein, Alfred, and Joel Wallman. The Crime Drop in America. Rev. ed. New York: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print.
Shahidullah, Shahid M. Crime Policy in America: Laws, Institutions and Programs. 2nd ed. Lanham: UP of America, 2016. Print.
Thompson, Alexandra, and Susannah N. Tapp. "Criminal Victimization, 2022." Bureau of Justice Statistics, 14 Sept. 2023, bjs.ojp.gov/document/cv22.pdf. Accessed 11 July 2024.