The FBI’s recent­ly released Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States, 2006, revealed that the mur­der rate in 2006 rose slight­ly from 5.6 mur­ders per 100,000 peo­ple in 2005 to 5.7 in 2006, but was at the same rate as in 1999 when use of the death penal­ty start­ed to show marked declines. There has been lit­tle change in the mur­der rate in the inter­ven­ing years when death sen­tences, exe­cu­tions, and the size of death row all declined.

As in pre­vi­ous years, the South had the high­est mur­der rate in 2006 (6.8 per 100,000 peo­ple) among the four geo­graph­i­cal regions. This rep­re­sents a 3% increase from 2005 and was the largest increase among the four 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, 4.5 per 100,000 peo­ple. Less than 1% of the exe­cu­tions in the coun­try have occurred in the Northeast. Louisiana had the high­est mur­der rate (12.4) and New Hampshire had the low­est (1.0).

(Press Release and Report, Crime in the United States 2006, U.S. Dept. of Justice, September 2007, 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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