WASHINGTON — Every type of violent crime fell last year with one notable exception: Murders were up for the fourth straight year, according to an annual FBI report released Monday. After reaching a low point in 1999 of about 15,500
WASHINGTON — Every type of violent crime fell last year with one notable exception: Murders were up for the fourth straight year, according to an annual FBI report released Monday.
After reaching a low point in 1999 of about 15,500 homicides, the number has crept up steadily since then to more than 16,500 in 2003 — or almost six murders for every 100,000 U.S. residents.
That was a 1.7 percent increase from 2002 and a jump of more than 6 percent since 1999. Still, the latest figure was 29 percent lower than the homicides in 1994.
James Alan Fox, criminal justice professor at Northeastern University, said the recent rise in murders is partly traceable to an upsurge in urban youth gang violence. The FBI report indicates there were 819 juvenile gang killings last year, compared with 580 in 1999.
The 1.4 million total violent crimes reported to law enforcement agencies in 2003 — murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault — marked a 3 percent drop from the year before. Aggravated assaults, which make up two-thirds of all violent crimes, have dropped for 10 straight years.
The report showed more than two-thirds of last year’s murders were committed with a firearm, roughly the same portion as every year since 1999. Americans for Gun Safety, a nonpartisan advocacy group, said that demonstrated the government’s inability to stop criminals from obtaining guns.d
