WASHINGTON (REUTERS) — For the first time in a decade, violent and property crime in the United States rose, growing 2.1 percent from 2000 to 2001, the FBI said Monday.
Some analysts said the increase was caused partly by the sagging economy coupled with fallout from the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked airliner attacks on the United States.
In its report on official crime statistics, the FBI said murder, rape and robbery figures were on the rise in 2001, along with burglary, larceny and car theft. Aggravated assault was the only category of violent crime that showed a decrease on the year, dropping 0.5 percent.
The overall 2.1 percent increase in the Crime Index, which is composed of four violent crimes and three property crimes, marked the first year-to-year increase since 1991, the FBI said.
Under the category of violent crimes, an estimated 15,980 murders occurred in the United States in 2001 — a 2.5 percent increase over the 2000 estimate.
By regions, the biggest increase in crimes was reported in the West, while the Northeast was the only region to post a decrease from the previous year’s rate.
Law-enforcement officials made an estimated 13.7 million arrests for criminal offenses, excluding traffic violations, in 2001. That was a 2.1 percent decline from 2000.
Criminal-law experts cited a number of reasons for the increase in crime.
“The economy has changed, demographics tend to be changing and there is different behavior from police,” said Dennis Kenney, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University, blamed the economic downturn and said the situation could get worse — especially given steps by local and federal law enforcement to reduce budgets and focus more heavily on combating terrorism.
“You can’t take forces away from traditional street crime fighting and put it into homeland security and think there won’t be an impact,” he said. “This is a slight increase … it should be a wake-up call. We have to pay for programs now or pray for the victims later.”
Alfred Blumstein, professor at Carnegie Mellon University, cited decreased job availability for younger people. He said there were also more inmates leaving prison, who might return to crime if there were no job opportunities for them.
According to figures provided for most of the murders, more than three-quarters of murder victims were male. About 42 percent of murder victims knew their assailants, and nearly a third of all female victims were slain by a husband or boyfriend.
Robbery figures rose 3.7 percent — the first increase in the offense in year-to-year comparisons since 1991.
Rape figures held nearly steady, up a slight 0.3 percent over the 2000 estimate.
The largest jump in property crimes was in the number of stolen vehicles — 5.7 percent higher than in 2000. More than 1.2 million vehicles were stolen in 2001 at an estimated dollar value of about $8.2 billion. Just under two-thirds of those vehicles were recovered.
The figures were compiled from data from about 17,000 law-enforcement agencies across the country.
They did not include data associated with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed about 3,000 people.
