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 News from Around the Americas | June 2006 
Violent Crime Rises In U.S.
 Dan Eggen - Washington Post
| | Graphic shows percent change in violent crime between 2004 and 2005 in U.S. cities with a population more than 100,000. |
Violent crime in 2005 increased at the highest rate in 15 years, driven in large part by a surge of killings and other attacks in many Midwestern cities, the FBI reported yesterday.
The FBI's preliminary annual crime report showed an overall jump of 2.5 percent for violent offenses, including increases in homicide, robbery and assault. It was the first rise of any note since 2001, and rape was the only category in which the number of crimes declined.
In the District, a 14.6 percent jump in the number of robberies caused a 5 percent rise in overall violent crime, more than offsetting a drop in the number of homicides, rapes and assaults. The decrease was particularly dramatic for rapes, which were down 24 percent.
In Baltimore, violent crime dropped about 3.6 percent overall, with decreases in all categories. The city of Alexandria reported a 22 percent increase in violent crime, although the total number of offenses -- 462 -- remained small. The FBI's preliminary report does not include breakdowns for many large suburban jurisdictions, such as Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George's counties.
The rise in violent offenses nationally represents the largest overall crime increase since 1991. Violent crime peaked in 1992, before beginning to plummet to its lowest levels in three decades.
Overall property crime -- including burglary, theft and arson -- decreased 1.6 percent from 2004.
Criminal justice experts said there were a number of possible explanations for the increase, including an influx of gangs into medium-size cities and a predicted surge in the number of inmates released from U.S. prisons. The jump could also represent a lingering effect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, some experts said, because governments at all levels have diverted resources away from traditional crime fighting in favor of anti-terrorism and homeland security programs.
"One possibility for the rise overall that we will want to watch is whether the shifting of law enforcement priorities to various kinds of homeland security duties accounts for any of this," said David A. Harris, a University of Toledo law professor who studies homeland security and criminal justice issues.
James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston, said the increase should serve as a "wake-up call in Washington." Lawmakers and the Bush administration have cut back many law enforcement programs popular during the 1990s.
"We have to worry about not just homeland security but also hometown security," Fox said. "High-crime areas have been relatively ignored over the last five years so we can deploy officers to fight terrorism."
Justice Department officials in Washington urged caution in interpreting crime statistics from a single year and noted that the crime rate -- measured on a per-capita basis and not reflected in yesterday's FBI report -- is still low by historical standards.
Richard A. Hertling, a principal deputy assistant attorney general, said the FBI statistics are "a yellow flag" but do not represent a trend, in part because the numbers are preliminary and do not include full reports from all jurisdictions.
"We don't think these numbers are terribly useful for helping to figure out what is happening on a national level," Hertling said. "That being said, they can be very useful for individual communities to see what their record is and what needs attention."
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and other Justice officials have frequently cited record-low crime rates as evidence of success. Gonzales also has unveiled programs focused on combating gangs and gun crime in many urban areas.
The FBI statistics are taken from reports submitted by more than 12,000 police departments and other law enforcement agencies nationwide. A final report, including more detailed statistics and reports from a larger number of police agencies, will be issued in the fall. Government officials and criminal justice experts said trends in the FBI's final reports usually do not differ widely from conclusions in the preliminary studies.
Cities with more than 1 million residents were the only FBI population category to show a decline in violent crime, though some individual large cities -- such as Phoenix and Houston -- posted increases. Crime reports fell again in New York.
The trend was different for smaller to medium-size cities, which experienced marked increases in most categories of violent crime.
Among violent crimes, the biggest rise in 2005 came in the number of homicides, which leapt 4.8 percent, to nearly 17,000. Some of the hardest-hit cities included Milwaukee (up 40 percent), Cleveland (38 percent), Houston (23 percent) and Phoenix (9 percent).
On a regional basis, the increase disproportionately hit the Midwest. Total violent crime reports there surged 5.7 percent -- at least three times the rate in the Northeast, South or West.
The District's 5 percent increase in violent crime was due to a jump in the number of reported robberies, which rose from 3,057 in 2004 to 3,502 in 2005.
D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said the upward trend for robberies appears to be continuing in 2006, particularly among juveniles. Street officers say that more juveniles are holding up people and that they are more often using guns, Ramsey said.
"Four out of every 10 people arrested for robbery this year have been juveniles," Ramsey said. "That's a heck a lot of it right there, that juvenile crime is up."
In Baltimore, reports of violent crime dropped from 2004 by about 3.6 percent, to 11,248 incidents. That nearly returned the city to its 2003 level of 11,183.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm said he is cautiously pleased with the drop in crime in the city, which has a reputation for violent, drug-filled street corners in some neighborhoods. "We're not having a party yet," Hamm said. "We still have a lot of work to do."
Staff writers Petula Dvorak and Allison Klein contributed to this report. |
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