Despite staggering unemployment and a poor economic climate, the nation’s crime rate fell 4.4 percent in the first six months of 2009. The national murder rate also fell 10 percent — a decline that is being called one of the more significant in decades. — JCL
ABC News:
Crime fell 4.4 percent nationwide in the first half of 2009 with the murder rate dropping a startling 10 percent, according to statistics released Monday by the FBI. The decline in murders is one of the more significant one-time decreases in recent memory, according to some criminologists.
Crime rates have been dropping since 2007, following a run up in violent crime during the middle part of the decade. FBI figures for 2005 showed that violent crime had increased 2.5 percent overall, one of the largest percentage increases in 15 years. Overall crime in the United States increased 3.7 percent in 2006.
[…] Criminologists and law enforcement officials believe the crime increases in those years had been triggered by a rise in gang activity, violent offenders returning from prison and children who have easy access to guns. In 2007 the uptick in violent crime had reversed, declining 0.7 percent and continuing into 2008 with the overall violent crime rate dropping 1.9 percent.