Fun With Crime Statistics

Crime rates nationally have increased for the second straight year and should be cause for concern:

The number of violent crimes in the United States rose for a second straight year in 2006, marking the first sustained increase in homicides, robberies and other serious offenses since the early 1990s, according to an FBI report to be released Monday.

The FBI's Uniform Crime Report will show an increase of about 1.3 percent in violent offenses last year, including a 6 percent rise in robberies and a slight rise in homicides, according to law enforcement officials, who described key findings in advance of the report's release. That follows an increase of 2.3 percent in 2005, which was the first significant increase in violent crime in 15 years.

Yet, all is not lost. New York City continues to see its crime rates drop. The rise in crimes overall and violent crimes in particular is due to the increases in smaller cities that have not adopted the kind of aggressive policing and methods employed by New York City.

Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said the trend over the past two years differs significantly from the major surge in violent crime from about 1985 to 1992, which was driven by the crack cocaine trade and seen in large cities across the country.

Now, Blumstein said, some of the country's largest cities, including New York, have enjoyed continued drops in crime, due in part to aggressive and creative policing tactics. The increase "seems to be attributable to a number of medium-sized cities that saw very large increases," Blumstein said.

Gene R. Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said less financial support from the federal government is "a big part of the equation" for smaller jurisdictions that do not have the resources of large cities. "If you don't devote resources to the problem, it's going to come back," Voegtlin said. "For the smaller to mid-size cities, one or two or five police officers can make a real difference."

But Gonzales, in his remarks yesterday at ATF headquarters, emphasized that "community-specific problems cannot successfully be tackled nationally or unilaterally because crime issues vary from city to city, and even between neighborhoods in a single city."

The improvements in law enforcement in New York City are threatened by reductions in the size of the police force and low salaries for entry level cops. Still, the NYPD has done an outstanding job of improving the quality of life in the City.