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Rising robbery, gun violence defy overall dip

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 11, 2006

WASHINGTON - Americans were robbed and victimized by gun violence at greater rates last year than the year before, even though overall violent and property crime reached a 32-year low, the Justice Department said Sunday.

These increases may buttress reports from the FBI and many mayors and police chiefs that violent crime is beginning to rise after a long decline. A Bush administration official expressed concern but stressed that it was too soon to tell if a new upward trend in violence had begun.

Last year, there were two violent gun crimes for every 1,000 individuals, compared with 1.4 in 2004, according to the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. There were 2.6 robberies for every 1,000 people, compared with 2.1 the year before.

"This report tells us the more serious events - robbery and gun crimes - increased and the FBI already told us homicides increased," said criminal justice professor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University.

"So while the report shows the more numerous but least serious violence - simple assaults, which is pushing and shoving - went down, the mix got worse in terms of severity. That wasn't a very good tradeoff," Fox said.

A preliminary FBI report in June on crimes reported to police showed a 4.8 percent increase in the number of murders and 4.5 percent increase in the number of robberies in 2005.

The statistics bureau's victimization report found that the overall violent crime rate was unchanged in 2005 from the year before, at just over 21 crimes for every 1,000 individuals over age 12.

The property crime rate fell in 2005 from 161 crimes to 154 for every 1,000 people because of a drop in household thefts. Both rates were the lowest since the survey began in 1973.

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty noted the record-low rates but said "we are concerned about" an increase in the violent firearm crime rate.

"Whether the increase ... marks a change in the trend toward reduced firearms victimization rates cannot be determined from one year's data," McNulty added.

Unlike the FBI report culled from police blotters, the statistic bureau makes estimates based on interviews with 134,000 people, so it counts not only reported crime but also crimes the police never hear about. Also, 53 percent of violent crimes and 60 percent of property crimes are never reported to the police.

Statistician Shannan Catalano, who wrote the new report, said the increases in gun violence and robbery rates reinforce the FBI data and the anecdotal evidence from local officials. But she cautioned that so few people in the survey reported robberies that the bureau cannot be certain whether those figures represent a true increase or a random sampling variation.

Because it is based on interviews with people about their firsthand experiences with crimes, the bureau's survey does not include homicides. It also tallies crimes such as simple assault and personal theft that are not covered by the FBI reports.

[Last modified September 11, 2006, 01:50:38]