Violent Crimes In U.S. Drop; Youth And Minorities Victimized Most, page 1

Violent crimes in America are at a record low since tracking by the government began more than thirty years before. Of the 24 million violent crimes and property crimes last year, only six percent involved the use of firearms. However youths between the ages 12-19 have the highest victimization rate as well as minorities.

news.yahoo.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Reports of violent crime in the United States in 2004 stayed at the lowest level since the government began compiling statistics 32 years ago, but males, youths and those of more than one race were victimized at higher rates than others, the Justice Department said on Sunday.

There were 24 million violent crimes and property crimes in 2004, about the same rate as the previous year, according to an annual study by the government's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Guns were used in 6 percent of all robberies, assaults, rapes and other nonlethal crimes, according to the report. That was down from 11 percent a decade earlier

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The highest victimization rate -- the number of victims of violent crime for every 1,000 people 12 and older -- was for people of two or more races, with a level of 51.6 per thousand. Blacks had a higher victimization rate, 26 per thousand, than whites, at 21 per thousand.

In terms of age, youths aged 12 to 15 had a victimization rate of 49.7; the next-highest rate for an age category was 45.9 for those aged 16 to 19. The lowest rate, 2.1, was for those 65 and or older.

Males had a victimization rate of 25, compared with 18.1 for females, the study showed.

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It is a good thing to see to see that violent crimes are going down in this country. It shows that perhaps civility is becoming slightly more accepted. However, I feel that the statistic show we can improve on a few things.

The fact that school age children, teenagers, and minorities have the highest vicimization rate is somewhat intriguing. I feel it shows that we may have some problems in our education system.

On another note I enjoyed noticing the fact that firearms were only used in 6% of VIOLENT crimes. Not to say that the use of firearms in over one million crimes across a nation is a good thing, but I feel it helps to support the debate that guns are not a big cause of crimes. In fact I feel that the possession of guns in homes have helped fuel the reduction in violent crimes in this country and hope to see this trend continue.

In fact as we can see from the supporting link "Fatal gun accidents declined by almost sixty percent from 1975 to 1995, even though the number of guns per capita increased by almost forty percent."

Overall, I am very pleased to see our society behaving a little better towards each other. Of course being a victim of several violent crimes as a youth myself, I would wish to see that issue addressed more directly.

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[edit on 2-10-2005 by DJDOHBOY]