NATIONAL CRIME RATE DOWN AGAIN

FBI says crime drops nationally for sixth straight year

WASHINGTON -- Serious crime reported to the police in 1997 declined for a
sixth consecutive year, with reductions in every region led by a plunge of
more than 10 percent in murder in larger cities and suburban counties, the
FBI said.

Attorney General Janet Reno welcomed the statistics but warned against
overconfidence. New problems always are possible, she said.

Preliminary figures released yesterday reflected a cumulative 4 percent
decrease in seven major crimes recorded by 9,582 police agencies around the
nation.

The violent crimes of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault dropped
5 percent nationally. Far more numerous property crimes of burglary, auto
theft and larceny-theft dipped 4 percent.

The most dramatic declines were in murder, for which statistics are the
most reliable and uniform. Homicide was down 9 percent nationwide but 14
percent in cities of 250,000 to 500,000; 11 per cent in cities over 1
million and in suburban counties; and 10 percent in cities of 500,000 to 1
million people.

An early 1980s decline in crime was reversed by the arrival of crack
cocaine, Reno said. With crack came gangs that recruited teen-agers and
armed them with guns, prompting other kids to arm themselves in defense or
emulation.

The next problems could come from cyberspace or abroad, Reno said. "The gun
may become obsolete as people learn how to hack through and ... accomplish
thefts and scams through the Internet," she said. "International crime is
going to be more on our radar screen than ever before as ... people become
more mobile."

Reno and other experts credited a wide range of reasons: Aging of the 76
million baby boomers born between 1946 and 1962 out of their crime-prone
years, reduction in crack-based violence, community policing and aggressive
police action to remove guns from the streets, stiffer prison sentences,
greater community involvement with juveniles and broader prevention efforts
for kids at risk of being lured into lives of crime.

The good news on crime appeared to reach even farther into every sector and
region than before.

While in 1996, the South experienced a 1.1 percent rise in the total of the
seven crimes, this time each region saw an overall decline. The Northeast,
where crime soared the most in the late 1980s, saw the biggest drop, 6
percent. The South was down 4 percent, and the Midwest and West dropped 3
percent each.

Cities of all sizes, suburbs and rural areas reported overall drops. Cities
of 250,000 to 1 million people reported a 5 percent drop. Suburban counties
were down 3 percent, rural counties 1 percent. The smallest urban drop was
2 percent in smaller towns, under 10,000 population.

Aside from a few spots where often-erratic rape figures rose, the only
noticeable increases were a 1 percent hike in violent crime in rural areas,
led by a 6 percent increase in robbery. There also was a 4 percent surge in
auto theft in rural areas.

"Rural areas are lagging because they are the last front in the 1980s crime
wave that started with crack in the big cities and put guns in the hands of
kids in gangs and outside gangs," said professor Alfred Blumstein of
Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Since October, four school-related shootings in small towns -- Edinboro,
Pa.; Jonesboro, Ark.; West Paducah, Ky.; and Pearl, Miss. -- have left 11
dead and 25 wounded. In each case, at least one teen-ager was charged.

"Many small towns, especially in the southern areas, are playing catch-up
with the big cities," said professor Jack Levin, director of the Program
for the Study of Violence at Northeastern University in Boston. "These
small towns thought they were immune from teen-age violence and didn't
prepare for the onslaught."

A major factor in the larger big city decline in murder was aggressive
police action to take guns away from kids and off the streets, Blumstein
said. He cited stop-and-frisk programs in New York City, gun-surrender
bounties in Charleston, S.C., and "various coordinated efforts by law
enforcement and social service agencies to let gangs know violence won't be
tolerated, as in Boston and other cities."

Levin added that "in the past five years, inner-city neighborhoods have
made a concerted, successful effort to address crime, particularly juvenile
crime, through community policing, clergy taking congregations to gangs,
community centers."

As a result, he said, the decline in youth violence goes beyond
crack-related crime. "There are fewer riots at concerts and sporting
events," Levin noted. "Many agencies are reporting that hate crimes, which
are mostly committed by teen-agers, have been declining too." CRIME
STATISTICS By The Associated Press Key changes in the FBI's preliminary
crime data for 1997 by crime type: Nationwide

Total Violent Crimes -5 percent Murder -9 percent Rape -1 percent
Aggravated Assault -2 percent Robbery -9 percent Total Property Crimes -4
percent Burglary -3 percent Larceny-theft -4 percent Auto theft -5 percent.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski