The FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2017, released by the U.S. Department of Justice, reports that mur­der rates sta­bi­lized across the United States in 2017, decreas­ing mar­gin­al­ly com­pared to adjust­ed homi­cide fig­ures from 2016 but remain­ing above the record lows record­ed ear­li­er in the decade. The ini­tial FBI crime fig­ures for 2017 report 17,284 mur­ders across the United States in 2017, com­pared to 17,413 in 2016, drop­ping the nation­wide mur­der rate from 5.4 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple to 5.3. The homi­cide num­bers are vir­tu­al­ly iden­ti­cal to the ini­tial FBI homi­cide fig­ures includ­ed in the 2016 FBI Uniform Crime Report, which ini­tial­ly report­ed 17,250 mur­ders and a mur­der rate of 5.3 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple in 2016. Once again, states with the death penal­ty tend­ed to have high­er mur­der rates than states with­out the death penal­ty, with Louisiana and Missouri top­ping the list at 12.4 and 9.8 mur­ders per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion, respec­tive­ly. Seven of the nine states with the high­est mur­der rates (and six­teen of the twen­ty high­est) are death-penal­ty states, while five of the eight states with the low­est mur­der rates (and nine of the low­est fif­teen) do not have the death penal­ty. New Hampshire, which has the death penal­ty, and North Dakota and Maine, which do not, had the low­est mur­der rates at 1.0, 1.3, and 1.7 mur­ders per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion, respec­tive­ly. The data also sup­ports the idea that abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty does not make states more dan­ger­ous. Delaware, which end­ed the death penal­ty in 2016, saw a 7.8% decrease in its mur­der rate from 2016 to 2017. As in past years, region­al data showed that more exe­cu­tions do not mean low­er mur­der rates. The South, which has per­formed far more exe­cu­tions than any oth­er region, con­tin­ued to have the high­est mur­der rate (6.4 per 100,000 peo­ple), while the Northeast, which has car­ried out only four exe­cu­tions since 1976, had the low­est (3.5). FBI data shows that mur­der rates have fall­en dra­mat­i­cal­ly since the 1980s and 1990s, con­tribut­ing to the nation­wide decline in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The cur­rent mur­der rate is 45.9% below 1991’s mur­der rate of 9.8 per 100,000 peo­ple. However, the decline in new death sen­tences has been even greater, with the 39 death sen­tences imposed in 2017 87.5% below the 315 death sen­tences imposed in 1994 and 1996.

(Crime in the United States, 2017, Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 24, 2018; Press Release, FBI Releases 2017 Crime Statistics, FBI National Press Office, September 24, 2018; Devlin Barrett and Mark Berman, FBI says mur­der, vio­lent crimes fell slight­ly last year after pre­vi­ous increas­es, Washington Post, September 24, 2018.) Read the FBI 2017 Murder Statistics by State. See Murder Rates.

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