WASHINGTON — Violent crime in the United States dropped by 7% in 1996, the fifth straight annual decline and the largest on record since the government began keeping track 35 years ago, the FBI said Sunday.
The reduction in the number of crimes reported to police across the nation was led by a record 11% drop in the number of murders. The positive direction was evident in a far steeper 36% decline in Santa Ana. And for the first time in 30 years, Huntington Beach had no murders.
The preliminary FBI statistics seem to confirm widely reported evidence of a dramatic reversal in the nation's long-term trends in crime. The turnaround has been most striking in major cities, where residents once assumed that crime would inevitably get worse.
Instead, safer streets are apparently beginning to lead to a higher quality of life in a number of the nation's urban centers, and a debate has begun among experts in an effort to identify the factors contributing to the renaissance.
Hailing the new statistics, President Clinton and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno attributed the declines in part to the administration's anti-crime policies.
"The continued downward trend over the past four years is further evidence that we are on the right track with increased community policing, tougher penalties and greater juvenile crime prevention," Clinton said.
"President Clinton's plan to combat crime is working," echoed Reno. "Penalties are tougher, tens of thousands of illegal gun sales have been thwarted, more than 57,000 new police have been paid for, and we are helping more young people stay on the right path."
The attorney general also used the occasion to press Congress to pass Clinton's youth crime bill, which would provide more prosecutors and stiffer penalties for gang-related violence, make it tougher for youths to get guns, and launch new prevention programs.
Police officials in some cities have cited new, get-tough law enforcement policies as contributing factors in the declining rates of violent crime. Other experts have noted an increased appreciation among big-city officials that "zero tolerance" for minor infractions--graffiti, vandalism, loud music, petty brawls--tends to keep neighborhoods more vibrant and reduces the sense of fear and isolation that breeds serious crime.
