Thursday, May 26, 2011

Crime Down

Combining three strikes sentencing and broken windows policing has been reducing crime for years—though others still promote the crime-is-caused-by-society rationale, nicely debunked at the Crime & Consequences blog—and the lowering continues, as this FBI Press Release notes.

An excerpt.

"According to the FBI’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report released today, the nation experienced a 5.5 percent decrease in the number of violent crimes and a 2.8 percent decline in the number of property crimes in 2010 when compared with data from 2009. The report is based on information the FBI gathered from 13,007 law enforcement agencies that submitted six to 12 comparable months of data for both 2009 and 2010.

"Violent Crime

• In 2010, all four of the violent crime offense categories—murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault—declined nationwide compared with data from 2009. Murder and non-negligent manslaughter declined 4.4 percent, forcible rape decreased 4.2 percent, robbery declined 9.5 percent, and aggravated assault was down 3.6 percent….

"Property Crime

• All property crime offense categories—burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft—decreased in 2010 when compared with 2009 data. Motor vehicle theft showed the largest drop (7.2 percent), followed by larceny-theft, which decreased 2.8 percent, and burglary, which declined 1.1 percent.