U.S. CRIME CONTINUES TO FALL

1999 Data: Rape, Sex Assaults Was Only Category To See Increase.

WASHINGTON -- The dramatic decline in crime the nation experienced during the 1990s continued last year, as the Justice Department reported the rate of violent crimes fell by 10 percent in 1999.

That is the largest one-year drop in crime rates since 1973, when the Justice Department began collecting crime data with a public survey. The levels of violence recorded are at their lowest since the survey began.

The Justice Department's survey, released Sunday, asks people about their experiences with crime over the previous year. Along with the FBI's annual crime report, which is compiled from police reports, it provides law-enforcement authorities an annual snapshot to measure crime trends. The two reports have paralleled each other throughout the 1990s in showing a downward trend in crime rates.

Although the survey's methodology means it can't track homicides, many specialists consider the extensive survey the best measure of national crime rates because talking with individuals about their personal experiences helps record the large number of crimes never reported to police.

Since a peak in 1994, the so-called Crime Victimization Survey has registered a 37 percent reduction in violent crimes.

In 1999, the survey found a decline in every kind of offense except rape and sexual assault. Property crimes such as burglary, motor vehicle theft and other kinds of theft also were down, by 9 percent.

As in the past, the most pronounced improvements were in urban areas, though urban residents still were more likely to be victims of crimes than residents of suburban or rural areas.

James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston, attributed the continuing decline in crime rates to "successes in many areas," including better policing tactics, increases in crime prevention programs, longer prison terms for convicted criminals, the shift in the drug market away from crack cocaine and the aging of the baby boom generation. Other criminologists cite the strong economy and stricter controls on gun sales.

President Clinton hailed the survey findings as "further proof that the Clinton-Gore administration's anti-crime strategy of more police on our streets and fewer guns in the wrong hands has helped to create the safest America in a generation."

Attorney General Janet Reno said: "The continuing drop in violent crimes is good news for all Americans. It demonstrates that the innovative and collaborative policies and programs among federal and state and local law enforcement work."

Still, experts have been cautioning that the nation may be nearing the end of its long run of dramatic annual reductions in crime.

Homicide rates crept up in 1999 in some of the major cities, such as New York, that were at the forefront of the national reductions in crime, according to FBI crime statistics and local police reports. So far this year, homicide rates also have been rising in cities such as Boston, Dallas and Washington, D.C., Fox said.

"These trends can't continue forever. We've seen an indication that at least the leading edge is starting to flatten out," said Alfred Blumstein, a professor of criminology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Fox also noted a swell in the proportion of 14 to 24 year olds, the age group most likely to commit crimes.

"We just now are beginning to see an expanding at-risk population. They've already been born and they're growing older every year. The worst thing we could do now is get complacent," Fox said.

"Just like public schools can anticipate increased enrollments, so can the criminal justice system," he said.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics' Crime Victimization Survey is based on U.S. Census Bureau interviews with 77,750 people ages 12 or older about their personal experiences with crime over the previous year.

According to the survey, 44 percent of violent crime victims reported the offense to police in 1999. As in past years, the survey showed blacks and males were much more likely to be the victims of violent crime than were whites and females.

Victims of all violent crimes, especially women, are likely to know their attacker: In 1999, 54 percent of all victims did, and 68 percent of female victims did.

The survey noted that preliminary FBI crime statistics, which are based on police reports, show an 8 percent drop in the murder rate in 1999.