SERIOUS CRIME DROPS IN EARLY 1998

WASHINGTON (AP) Every region of the nation and communities of all sizes
have a share of the 5 percent drop in serious crimes reported to police
nationwide in the first half of this year, the FBI reports.

Crime has been declining for 6 1/2 years since a crack cocaine epidemic
pushed it to peak levels in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"This is remarkable progress and it shows that our strategy of more police,
tougher gun laws and better crime prevention is making a difference,"
President Clinton said in a statement.

Attorney General Janet Reno said, "These continuing declines are more
evidence that we have turned an historic corner on crime. Crime is still
too high, but rising crime rates are not a fact of life."

Citing preliminary figures from police agencies, the FBI said Sunday that
violent crimes were down 7 percent and the far more numerous property
crimes were down 5 percent from the first six months of 1997.

All seven types of major crime declined, led by an 11 percent plunge in
robberies and an 8 percent drop in murders. Aggravated assault and rape
both fell 5 percent.

In property crime, auto theft dropped 8 percent; larceny-theft declined 5
percent and burglary dipped 3 percent.

Just three weeks ago, the FBI's final figures for 1997 showed the nation's
murder rate had reached its lowest point in 30 years.

The crime decline has been attributed by academic specialists, police
executives and elected officials to a variety of causes.

They include the aging of the baby boom generation beyond the crime-prone
years; police efforts, especially in big cities, to get guns out of the
hands of teen-agers; increased police-community cooperation; stiffer
sentences, particularly for violent criminals; prevention programs for
children with little supervision; the improved national economy and a
reduction in crack cocaine use and in the warfare between drug gangs.

Each of the seven crimes declined in each region of the country, except for
a 1 percent rise in burglaries in the Midwest. Overall, serious crimes were
down 8 percent in the Northeast, 6 percent in the West, 5 percent in the
South and 1 percent in the Midwest.

By population, overall crime declined in cities of all sizes, suburbs and
rural areas. Cities with more than 1 million residents saw a 6 percent
drop. The greatest reduction was 8 percent in cities of 50,000 to 99,999.
Towns under 10,000 recorded a 3 percent drop.

Suburban counties had 6 percent declines overall, and rural counties
reported a 2 percent overall drop.

The few isolated increases were in areas that experts had predicted: an 8
percent rise in murders in towns of 10,000 to 24,999 and a 3 percent rise
in murders and aggravated assaults in rural counties.

As crack cocaine gangs matured, they negotiated truces in their big-city
wars and increasingly sought new markets in smaller towns and rural areas,
professor Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie-Mellon University has found. Police
in those smaller towns and rural areas were less equipped than those in big
cities to quell drug gang activity.

The gangs have been blamed for beginning the arming of teen-agers with guns
in the mid-1980s. Other teens obtained guns to emulate the gangs or to
defend themselves.

As a result, teen-age gun homicides soared 169 percent between 1984 and
1993, when the juvenile murder rate peaked. But from 1993 through 1997, the
juvenile murder arrest rate fell more than 40 percent, according to the
Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
The smallest towns and rural areas have been the last areas to participate
in both these trends.

The half-year report gives only percentage changes in the number of crimes.
It does not provide national totals for specific crimes, nor crime rates
per 100,000 residents.

EDITOR'S NOTE Specific crime totals for 205 of the nation's larger cities
in the half-year report can be found at the FBI's Internet site:
http://www.fbi.gov.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski