The FBI recent­ly released the lat­est ver­sion of its Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States 2005. The report showed that the mur­der rate in 2005 (5.6 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple) was the same as in 2001, with lit­tle change in the inter­ven­ing years. Death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions and the size of death row all declined dur­ing this peri­od.

As in pre­vi­ous years, the South had the high­erst mur­der rate, 6.6, among the 4 geo­graph­i­cal regions. Over 80% of the exe­cu­tions in the coun­try have occurred in the South since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed. The Northeast had the low­est mur­der rate, 4.4. Less than 1% of the exe­cu­tions in the coun­try have occurred in the Northeast.

The state with the largest increase in its mur­der rate was Alabama, where the mur­der rate increased 46%. The state with the largest decrease in its mur­der rate was Vermont, a non-death penal­ty state, where the rate decreased by 51%.

(Press Release and Report, Crime in the United States 2005, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sept. 18, 2006, with death penal­ty notes from DPIC). See Deterrence (with a break­down of mur­der rates by state and by year) and Studies.

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