Violent crimes fall, except murder

WASHINGTON - Every type of violent crime fell last year with one notable exception: Murders were up for the fourth straight year, according to an annual FBI report released Monday.

After reaching a low point in 1999 of about 15,500 homicides, the number has crept up steadily since then to more than 16,500 in 2003 - or almost six murders for every 100,000 U.S. residents.

That was a 1.7 percent increase from 2002 and a jump of more than 6 percent since 1999. Still, the latest figure was 29 percent lower than homicides in 1994.

James Alan Fox, criminal justice professor at Northeastern University, said the recent rise in murders is partly traceable to an upsurge in urban youth gang violence. The FBI report indicates there were 819 juvenile gang killings last year, compared with 580 in 1999.

"It's quite clear that at least in terms of homicide, the great 1990s crime drop is officially over and has been for some time," Fox said. "While this does not signal any epidemic of homicide in this country, we cannot ignore what has happened in the past few years."

The 1.4-million total violent crimes reported to law enforcement agencies in 2003 - murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault - marked a 3 percent drop from the year before. Aggravated assaults, which make up two-thirds of all violent crimes, have dropped for 10 years.

The Bush administration seized on the more positive numbers - overall violent crime is down 3.1 percent since 1999 - as evidence that its law enforcement policies are working.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said factors in the reduction include stepped-up federal prosecution of gun crimes, arrest of more drug offenders and longer prison sentencing policies for repeat offenders.

"All across our country, law-abiding Americans are enjoying unprecedented safety," Ashcroft said.

Democrats, however, said the uptick in murders and the increase in juvenile gang slayings over the past four years show that much more needs to be done. Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards said more money is needed for gang prevention, the COPS program that provides grants for new police officers and other anticrime initiatives.

The FBI statistics, Edwards said, "remind us how much more we have to do to fight crime and keep our communities safe in America."

The 2003 FBI report translates to a rate of 475 violent crimes for every 100,000 Americans, a 3.9 percent decrease from the previous year.

The FBI report is based on crime statistics from 17,000 state and local law enforcement agencies around the country.

Violent crime was down by a fraction in Florida last year compared to 2002. The number of violent crimes - murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault - reported in Florida in 2003 was about 124,300, down from about 128,700 in 2002, the FBI reports.

The figures mean there were about 730 violent crimes per 100,000 people in Florida last year, down from 771 per 100,000 the previous year.

-Associated Press

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