According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics Report released on September 10, vio­lent crime in the United States decreased slight­ly in 2005, con­tin­u­ing a decade-long trend in few­er vic­tim­iza­tions. Comparing two-year peri­ods, vio­lent crime was low­est in the Northeast region of the coun­try in 2004-05, and that region also expe­ri­enced the largest decrease in vio­lent crime from 2002-03 to 2004-05. Since 1993, vio­lent crime has decreased by about 58% in the U.S.

The BJS sur­vey of crime vic­tim­iza­tion does not include homi­cides. However, the report did cite fig­ures from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2004 and pre­lim­i­nary num­bers for 2005. In that sur­vey, the nation­al mur­der rate decreased by 2.4% in 2004, but increased by 4.8% in 2005. Blacks and whites were about equal­ly rep­re­sent­ed among vic­tims of homi­cide.
(Criminal Victimization, 2005, Bureau of Justice Statistics, September 2006). See Deterrence. In death penal­ty cas­es, about 80% of the vic­tims in the under­ly­ing mur­der have been white, despite the fact that gen­er­al­ly blacks and whites are about equal in terms of the num­ber of murder victims.

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