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Murders, robberies drive up U.S. violent crime rate
POSTED: 11:04 a.m. EDT, June 4, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- More murders and robberies in 2006 sent U.S. violent crimes higher for the second straight year, the FBI said on Monday, with the increase blamed on gangs, youth violence, gun crimes and fewer police on beats.
The FBI reported that the number of violent crimes nationwide went up by 1.3 percent last year, following a 2.3 percent increase in 2005. That had been the first rise in four years and the biggest percentage gain in 15 years.
The report showed that murders in big cities jumped last year by 6.7 percent. Robberies, an important indicator of crime trends, increased 6 percent nationwide.
Cities with big increases in the number of murders included Orlando and Miami in Florida; Oakland and San Diego in California; Phoenix, Arizona; Corpus Christi, Texas; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Reno, Nevada and Little Rock, Arkansas. (Watch what's driving the increase in violence 
)
Even though the higher violent crime numbers had been expected, they still represented bad news for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has targeted violent crime as a top priority for the U.S. Justice Department.
A department study released last month of 18 metropolitan areas cited more violence by local gangs or street crews, a greater prevalence of guns in the hands of criminals and younger, more violent offenders as key reasons for the rising crime rates.
Criminologists agreed with those reasons and also said there are fewer police on the beat. They cited the Bush administration's shift in emphasis to prevent terrorism since the September 11 attacks and funding cuts for programs to put more police officers on the street.
"The fact that we are seeing these increases several years in a row should be a wake-up call," said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston.
"There's a tendency to think the sky is falling. It's not," said Fox, noting the increases have been relatively small. "We're not talking about an epidemic here."
David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said the crime problems appear to be spreading to medium-sized and smaller cities.
He said the emergence of deadly drug crews or street gangs can have a potentially profound impact on a city's homicide or gun assault rate.
Lawrence Sherman, director of a criminology center at the University of Pennsylvania, called it an unusual pattern that murder is going up in some big cities, but down in others.
One possible explanation is that some police departments are doing much more to catch people illegally carrying concealed weapons, he said.
In the FBI report, murders nationwide increased overall by 0.3 percent. The increase in big cities was nearly offset by declines in non-metropolitan areas.
In the violent crime category, burglaries and murders increased nationwide while the number of rapes declined by nearly 2 percent and aggravated assaults fell slightly.
Violent crime went up in every region of the country except for the Northeast. The largest increase occurred in the West at 2.8 percent.
