WASHINGTON — Violent crime in America continued its recent downward slide in 1997, falling almost 7% to its lowest level in at least 24 years, the Justice Department reported Sunday.
Property crime also dropped to its lowest rate since the government began conducting annual household surveys of crime victimization in 1973. The violent-crime rate has fallen more than 21% since 1993; property crime rates, which have decreased steadily since the mid-1970s, are down 22% since 1993.
In 1997, the National Crime Victimization Survey found, Americans age 12 or older were victims of almost 35 million crimes, down from nearly 37 million in 1996 and about 44 million in 1973.
"These new figures again show that our strategy of more police, stricter gun laws and better crime prevention is working," President Clinton said in a statement. "But we are not yet done. . . . We must redouble our efforts to make our streets, homes and schools safer for all Americans."
Most segments of the population experienced reduced violent and property crimes. One exception: Americans at least 50 years of age were crime victims as frequently in 1997 as in 1993.
The annual survey measures crimes reported to the police and those that go unreported. Information was gathered from interviews with about 80,000 individuals in 43,000 households during 1997.
Violent crime, as measured by the survey, includes rape and sexual assault, robbery and assault. It does not include murder or manslaughter because of the reliance on interviews with victims.
The FBI's unified crime reports, based on reports to state and local police officials nationwide, said last month that the murder rate declined 8% during 1997. A total of 18,210 murders last year represents a 28% drop since 1993.
A report released earlier this month by the FBI shows that the downward trend is continuing this year. The report, broken down by city, credited Los Angeles with a 10% drop in serious crime during the first half of 1998. Several California cities showed similar drops, the bureau found.
Alfred Blumstein, an expert on crime rates at Carnegie Mellon University, said an important factor in the reduction of violent crime has been a decrease in the crack cocaine trade, which had triggered a diffusion of guns among young males for protection, revenge and robbery.
"Fortunately, that was accompanied by good economic times so that there were legitimate jobs for the young people" entering the work force, Blumstein said.
