FBI reports fewer murders and crime drop in 1996

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuter) Fewer murders in the United States helped push the
number of serious crimes reported to the police down by three percent in
1996 for the fifth annual decrease in a row, the FBI said Saturday.

The FBI said in its 408page report giving final U.S. crime statistics for
1996 that the 19,645 murders represented a nine percent drop from the
number of killings in 1995.

``As in previous years, firearms were the weapons used in approximately
seven of every 10 murders committed in the nation,'' the FBI said in the
report.

About half of all murder victims knew their assailants in 1996, 15 percent
of the victims were killed by strangers and the relationship between the
victim and killer was unknown in the rest of the cases, the FBI said.

Even with the crime decrease, the FBI said there was one murder committed
in the United States every 27 minutes, one rape every six minutes, one
assault every 31 seconds and a burglary every 13 seconds.

The FBI included a special section on drug use from 1980 to 1995. According
to the report, ``The nation experienced its highest level of illicit drug
activity in 1995,'' when a record 1.5 million people were arrested for drug
offenses.

Besides murder, other violent crimes posted declines in 1996 with robbery
down seven percent, assaults down six percent and rape down two percent.

The FBI said serious crime dropped five percent last year in the nation's
64 largest cities with populations exceeding 250,000, while violent crime
was down seven percent.

The federal law enforcement agency said the crime index total of nearly
13.5 million offenses represented the lowest crime count since 1986.

The FBI said an estimated $15.5 billion in property was stolen last year,
with the greatest losses due to thefts of motor vehicles, then televisions,
radios and stereos, and finally jewelry and precious metals.

The overall numbers illustrated how crime in the United States has fallen
for five years, after a surge since the mid1980s following the spread of
crack cocaine and the culture of innercity guns and gangs that it fostered.

Experts have attributed the decline to a number of factors, including the
aging of the babyboom generation past the prime years for committing crimes.

They also have cited better policing strategies, more police on the
streets, a recorded U.S. prison population, tougher gun control laws and
improved economic conditions.

Attorney General Janet Reno welcomed the decline. ``These numbers show that
escalating crime is not an unsolvable problem,'' she said, adding that
Congress still needs to adopt new juvenile crime legislation.

The FBI's final crime statistics for 1996 largely mirrored the preliminary
figures released in June.