Highlights
Violent crime is increasing.
For the National Crime Survey, most of the sixteen categories of violent crime rates increased from 2015 to 2017.
First of a three-part series on crime in America.
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Retired federal senior spokesperson. Thirty-five years of award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of criminology and public affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University.
Introduction
Violent crime increased in the US in 2017 per the latest report from the National Crime Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice.
For the second straight year, the number of victims of violent crime was higher than in 2015.
There is an endless debate in the media regarding violent crime with many (most?) advocates and criminologists insisting that it isn’t increasing. It is.
Data From Multiple Sources
It’s challenging to look at any (or one) national crime report in isolation. Every data set has different methods of collection, and all measure unique things.
For example, the National Crime Survey attempts to measure most criminality through a survey, while the FBI offers crimes reported to the police. Many consider the FBI’s report to be an account of “serious-reported” crime while the National Crime Survey addresses both reported and unreported crimes regardless of magnitude.
A third source, Gallup, offers data on personal and household crime and fear of crime.
You have to look at all to get a good sense as to the status of violence or overall crime. It’s also advisable to review violent crime for patterns during recent years. Please note the differences between rates and numbers.
Recent Examples Include:
Gallup: Household crime per Gallup for 2018 increased. 24% of households were victimized by violent or property crimes (excluding cybercrimes) in 2018, up from the 22% who said the same last year. However, it dropped from a high of 29 percent in 2016. Beyond the 24 percent victimized by violent and property crimes, 23% of U.S. households were victimized by cybercrime in 2018. A high percentage of American households are affected by cyber or conventional crime every year.
Per Gallup, 78 percent of Americans worry about crime and violence a great deal or a fair amount, the same as health care, the number one issue.
National Crime Survey: There were increases in violent crime per the National Crime Survey for categories in 2016. For example, the rate of violent victimization against males increased from 2015 to 2016, rising from 15.9 to 19.6 per 1,000 males age 12 or older.
From 2015 to 2016, the number of persons experiencing one or more violent victimizations increased from 2.7 million to 2.9 million.
Now we have new data from the National Crime Survey stating that violent crime numbers increased in 2016 and 2017 (report summarized below).
Identity theft is increasing by considerable margins, from 7% in 2014 to 10% in 2016, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
FBI: Per the FBI, after two consecutive years of increases, the estimated number of violent crimes in the nation decreased 0.2 percent in 2017 when compared with 2016 data. But the “decrease” went from 0.8 percent (first six months) to a reduction of 0.2 percent at the end of the year, suggesting the possibility of a future upward trend. This happened in 2014 with increases in 2015.
Cities and states (some–not all), report increases in violence.
The data cited above is available at Crime in America. “Violent and Property Crime Rates in the U.S.” provides a comprehensive overview of crime from multiple sources for recent years.
Conclusions
Most of the data for recent years suggests an increase in household or violent crime, especially the 2015 and 2016 reports from the FBI. For homicides, growth was considerable.
For the National Crime Survey, most of the sixteen categories of violent crime rates increased from 2015 to 2017. Some were flat. Three decreased.
The difficulty is accurately stating the degree of increase in violence. For example, violence was essentially flat via the 2017 report from the FBI.
In the National Crime Survey, violent crime numbers (not rates) rose 9 percent from 2015-2016 and 17 percent from 2015-2017. The violent crime rate remained stable from 2016 to 2017 but there was a statistically significant increase from 2015 to 2017.
I’m not suggesting explosive increases in violence as during the crack cocaine days of the 1980s to the mid-1990s, CityLab. But for many cities and states, violence is a real concern.
There are those insisting that we have never lived in safer times due to an almost continuous (and considerable) twenty-year decline in crime, but that argument is getting stale since the increases in violence began in 2015.
If you read the daily national crime reports and newspaper accounts on this site and others, you get a sense that there is a growing concern regarding violence in many American cities.
Latest National Crime Survey Report
The Bureau of Justice Statistics announced the results of the 2017 National Crime Victimization Survey in December of 2018, which BJS has conducted annually since 1973.
There was no statistically significant increase from 2016 to 2017 in the number of residents who had been victims of violent crime, while there was a statistically significant increase from 2015 to 2017.
The overall number of victimizations that occurred, reflecting the total number of times people were victimized, did not increase significantly over either a 1-or 2-year span.
These 2017 findings follow a statistically significant increase in the number of victims of violent crime from 2015 to 2016.
The rate of robbery victimizations rose from 1.7 per 1,000 residents age 12 or older in 2016 to 2.3 per 1,000 in 2017.
The portion of U.S. residents who had been a victim of violent crime increased from 0.98 percent in 2015 to 1.14 percent in 2017. This 2-year rise in the prevalence of violent crime was driven primarily by an increase in simple assault (which is generally non-felony assault).
For the second straight year, the number of victims of violent crime was higher than in 2015.
The number of persons age 12 or older who had been victims of violent crime rose from 2.7 million in 2015 to 2.9 million in 2016 (up 9 percent from 2015) and 3.1 million in 2017 (up 17 percent from 2015).
The 2-year increase in the number of violent-crime victims was 455,700.
Based on the 2017 survey, about 45 percent of violent victimizations and 36 percent of property victimizations were reported to police.
The percentage of rapes or sexual assaults that were reported to police rose from 23 percent in 2016 to 40 percent in 2017.
The National Crime Survey collects information on nonfatal violent and property crimes against persons age 12 or older, whether or not these crimes were reported to police, from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. Respondents are asked about the number and characteristics of crimes they have experienced during the prior six months.
Source
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