Preliminary data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2004 found that mur­ders in the U. S. dropped last year by 3.6%. The num­ber of exe­cu­tions also declined in 2004. In 2003, the South had the high­est mur­der rate in the coun­try, and that appeared to con­tin­ue in 2004 even as the South car­ried out 85% of the nation’s exe­cu­tions. The Northeast, which had no exe­cu­tions in 2004, had the low­est mur­der rate in 2003 and that posi­tion appeared to remain the same in 2004. The FBI’s final crime report for 2004 will be avail­able in the fall. (See FBI Press Release, ​“Preliminary Crime Statistics for 2004,” June 6, 2005. Execution data from DPIC). Read the FBI’s com­plete Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report (in PDF for­mat). See also Deterrence and Executions.

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