THE
Table of Contents
Purpose and Scope of the Fact Book
on Violent Crime
Data Used for Deter mining Violent Crime Trends
Violent
Crimes Defined
Overview and Summary Description of
Violent Crime Trends
Figure 1:
Comparison of Violent Crime Rates: 1975-2000
Figure 2:
Comparison of Murder Rates: 1975-2000
Figure 3:
Comparison of Forcible Rape Rates: 1975-2000
Figure 4:
Comparison of Robbery Rates: 1975-2000
Figure 5:
Comparison of Aggravated Assault Rates: 1975-2000
3. VIOLENT CRIMES BY ARIZONA CITIES,
1975-2000
Violent Crime
Rates for Arizona Cities (population >10,000) by Year
4. CORRELATES OF VIOLENT CRIME, 1995-2000
5. VIOLENCE PREVENTION ELECTRONIC RESOURCES
General
Information
Funding
Information
Programmatic/
Resource Information
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am appreciative of the
contributions of Professors
I would also like to
acknowledge the data collection efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
which annually collect and summarize the Uniform Crime Reports which provided
the statistical basis for this report. In addition, I would like to acknowledge
the assistance of Angela Kinnett, Miranda Watkins, and Daren Jensen, who are
Arizona State University West undergraduates from the Department of
Administration of Justice, for their valuable assistance in this endeavor.
In addition to the
individuals who worked to develop and produce The Arizona Fact Book on Violence, it is important to recognize the
support of its sponsors. The Violence
Prevention Initiative provided generous funding and support that made the
development of this volume possible and I am grateful for the value to the
State of
John
Hultsman, Re.D.
Director,
Partnership for
Community
Development
June, 2002
THE
1. INTRODUCTION
In 2001, a national sample of
PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE FACT
BOOK ON
VIOLENT CRIME
Addressing violent crime requires
an understanding of the scope of the problem, a framework for organizing
potential explanations of trends in violence and resources for prevention
efforts. The purpose of this Fact Book
is to provide these requirements. The
Fact Book presents a variety of statistics complied by individual researchers,
as well as local, state, and federal agencies, in an easy-to-understand format
for citizens, practitioners and policy makers in the state of
To meet the
needs of citizens, practitioners and policy makers this Fact Book has a number
of specific goals:
·
Provide readers with a general working knowledge of the
Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) - a statistical database that disseminates
information on crimes known to the police and arrests made by the police. The UCR is used as the primary data source
for the crime rates presented herein.
·
Present readers with graphical trends and detailed
description of violent crime rates for the state of
·
Present readers with graphical trends and detailed
descriptions of specific types of violent crime in the state of
·
Present readers with tabular data on violent crime rates for
all cities in
·
Provide readers with a brief, research-based review of
community and individual characteristics that may have helped to shape changes
in rates of violence that have occurred in
·
Provide readers with detailed information on violence
prevention resources that are electronically accessible including URLs current
as of the publication of this Fact Book. Electronic prevention resources
include programmatic resources, informational resources, and potential funding
sources for crime and delinquency prevention efforts.
·
Present readers with references and citations that will
allow for a more in-depth examination of the criminological literature that pertains
to violence and violence prevention efforts.
This Fact Book
is divided into six sections. The current section provides an introduction to
the overall topic of violent crime and orients the reader to the data that will
be used to describe violent crime in
VIOLENT CRIME FACTS
A myriad of scenarios come to
mind when a person envisions an act of violence. Oftentimes, we picture a
random act of violence perpetrated by a stranger against an innocent victim. We
also tend to think of stereotypical criminal acts such as a young male
offender, and perhaps even a vulnerable elderly woman as the victim. Extensive descriptive information has been
gathered by researchers that in some cases confirm these stereotypes but most
often debunks myths about crime held by the public. For example, results in the
criminological literature has demonstrated that:
·
Offenders tend
to be males rather than females. Females
typically account for less than 20% of arrests for aggravated and simple
assault and less than 10% of arrests for homicide and robbery.
·
The age of the
typical violent crime offender is between 12 and 24, with a peak in violence
rates occurring around the age of 18.
·
Males are
victimized at rates approximately 40% higher than those of females (with the
exception of sexual assault).
·
The age of the
typical violent crime victim is between 12 and 24, with a peak in victimization
rates occurring around the age of 18.
·
Teenagers are
more likely than any other age group to be robbed. Persons aged 16 to 19 were two times more
likely to be robbed than those 25 to 34, and 10 times more likely to be robbed
than those over 65.
·
In 1999, 63% of
homicide victims were under 35, 12% were under 18.
·
Between 1993
and 1998, American Indians experienced violence at rates more than two times
that of Blacks, 2.5 times that of Whites and 4.5 times that of Asians.
·
Increases in
annual income are associated with decreases in violent victimization. The income category with the highest rates of
victimization is comprised of those who earn less than $7,500 a year.
·
Those who
engage in crime are more likely to be victims of crime than those who do not
engage in crime.
These crime facts have provided
an informed position from which researchers have been able to focus on
examining specific types of crime. This Fact Book will focus on the type of
crime that tends to instill the greatest fear in the public - violent
crimes. While the above facts represent
generalized knowledge about violent crime, an understanding of the violent
crime problem in
DATA USED FOR DETERMINING VIOLENT
CRIME TRENDS
Beginning in 1930, police agencies
have annually reported crimes occurring within their jurisdictions to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation on a voluntary basis. This information has been
aggregated and made available to the public each year through the Uniform Crime
Reports[1].
The UCR presents detailed information on a variety of selected crimes and a
composite measure known as the Crime Index, which has been widely used as an
indicator of crime rates throughout the country. The Crime Index is composed of
selected offenses that are used to gauge fluctuations in the overall volume and
rate of crime reported to law enforcement across the
It is important to understand
that the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) are based on information from reported
accounts of crime, or “crimes known to the police.” This is important because citizens often do
not report crime to the police.
Citizens fail
to report crimes to law enforcement authorities for a variety of reasons
including a fear of retaliation and/or embarrassment. Researchers have found
that some types of crime, such as rape and domestic violence, tend to be more
underreported than other crimes. Numerous other reasons have been noted by
citizens for an explanation of why they did not report a crime to the police
such as lack of importance (“it wasn’t a big deal”), distrust of the police, or
citizens simply did not want to get involved with the criminal justice system.
When a citizen does report an
event as a crime to appropriate authorities, the documentation of these reports
become dependent on the police officers. Once the police are aware that an
incident has occurred, the recording of the crime by the police through a
police report becomes dependent on legal and sometimes extralegal factors. Some
of these factors may include, but are not limited to, the technical
qualifications of the incident as criminal, organizational pressures to
increase or decrease the jurisdiction’s crime rate, police officer and offender
interactions, as well as the professional style of particular police
departments.
The data for the UCR depend on
the reporting of crime by citizens and the recording of these crimes by law
enforcement personnel in turn. Due to
this method of data collection, rates based on "crimes known to the
police" underestimate actual crime rates.
Fortunately, alternative methods of data collection allow us to estimate
the extent to which citizens fail to report crime to police. One example of an alternative data collection
method is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The U.S. Census Bureau conducts the NCVS in
conjunction with the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Data for the NCVS is collected from a random
sample of US households. Victimization
data is collected for each household member over the age of 12.
NCVS findings demonstrate that
not all of the crimes reported by victims through the NCVS were reported to
police. Depending on the crime type, up
to 50% of victimizations are not reported to the police and therefore would not
be included in the calculation of rates presented in the UCR. The NCVS shows that reporting varies with
offense seriousness. More serious crimes are reported more often. In general, about one-half of all violent
crimes, two-fifths of all household crime and slightly more than one-quarter of
all personal thefts are reported to police. The exception to this trend is auto
theft, which is the crime that is reported most often. One explanation for this
exception is that frequently automobile insurance companies require a police
report to process a stolen vehicle claim.
In addition to underreporting,
the official recording of crime statistics has encountered a number of
technical problems as well. Until the recent shift in the UCR toward the new
National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) only the most serious offense
was recorded even when multiple crimes have been committed during an incident.
This style of reporting is referred to as the hierarchy rule. This technicality is another known source of
measurement error in the historical reporting of the Uniform Crime Reports.
While these sources of error
appear to make the reporting of crimes in the UCR a rather selective process,
alternative measures of crime such as victimization surveys are subject to
unique types of reporting error as well. The benefits of utilizing the UCR for
this presentation of fact is that reporting “crimes known to the police” is the
most widely used measure of crime and the longest used measures. Further, we
are familiar with the sources of error and can take these sources under
consideration in the weighing of evidence, and most importantly data are
available across the country for comparison purposes.
DEFINITION OF VIOLENT CRIMES
Numerous variations on the
definition of violence can be found in the criminological literature. One of
the most common definitions suggests that violence is a behavior by persons,
against persons, that intentionally threatens, attempts, or actually inflicts
physical harm (Reiss and Roth, 1993). Throughout this Fact Book the Uniform Crimes
Report is used as a source of data. The
UCR utilizes a categorical definition of violent crimes that is consistent with
the definition offered above.
The Uniform
Crime Reports states that violent crimes are criminal acts that involve force
or threat of force, which includes four types of offenses as violent crimes:
murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated
assault. The Federal Bureau of Investigation provides the following crime
specific definitions:
Murder and non-negligent manslaughter is defined as
the willful (non-negligent) killing of one human being by another. Not included
in this classification are deaths caused by negligence, suicide, or accident;
justifiable homicides, and attempts to murder or assaults to murder, which are
included in counts of aggravated assaults[2].
Forcible rape is the carnal
knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will. Assaults or attempts to
commit rape by force or threat of force are also included; however, statutory rape
(without force) and other sex offenses are not included.
Robbery is the taking
or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a
person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/ or by putting
the victim in fear.
Aggravated assault is an unlawful
attack by one person upon another for inflicting severe or aggravated bodily
injury. This type of assault is usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or
by means likely to produce death or great bodily harm. Attempts are included
since it is not necessary that an injury result when a gun, knife, or other
weapon is used which could and probably would result in serious personal injury
if the crime were successfully completed.
2. VIOLENT CRIME TRENDS IN
THE UNITED STATES
This section
of this Fact Book presents trends in violent crime rates covering the past 25
years, beginning in 1975 and continuing through 2000. In addition to
descriptions of these trends, graphical comparisons are provided for the
violent crime rate trends between the
As noted
earlier, the data presented in this report are based on Uniform Crime Report
data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in conjunction with the
U.S. Census Bureau. The Uniform Crime Reports define violent crime as being
comprised of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and
aggravated assault (Refer to Definitions
of Violent Crime in Section 1 for details).
It is possible
that factors influencing violent crime rates will have an effect on a
particular violent crime type that is different from its effect on other
violent crime types. For example, it is
possible that fluctuations in the unemployment rate may have a more pronounced
effect on economically motivated violent crime such as robbery. Therefore, it is important that we examine
both overall violent crime rate trends, as well as disaggregate violent crime
rates by specific crime types and examine the trends of these individual crime
types.
In the following pages, Figure 1
through 5 will illustrate the changes in overall violent crime as well as the
individual crime types that constitute the violent crime measure. Each graph
presents the rate of reported crime that occurred per 100,000 persons,
beginning in 1975 continuing through to 2000. The crime rates were calculated
as the number of crimes reported for that year divided by the population for
that jurisdiction in the same year, multiplied by 100,000.
This equation provides the basis
for the calculation crime rates by 100,000 persons:
Crime rate =
# of crimes reported x 100,000
Reported population in jurisdiction
The
trend graphs for the multiple jurisdictions that are included in this section
allow for three important comparisons to be made. The first type of comparison
allowed is a within jurisdiction comparison. We are able to examine the
variation in crime trends for a specific jurisdiction over time. The second
type of comparison that we are able to make is a between jurisdictions
comparison within the same year. Finally, the third comparison we are able to
make is a comparison of between jurisdictions trends over time.
Five figures
have been created to demonstrate the trends. Figure 1 presents trends in rates
based on a composite measure of violent crime as defined by the Uniform Crime
Reports. Figures 2 through 5 present the trends for the four types of violent
crime included in the violent crime measure – murder, forcible rape, robbery
and aggravated assault.
Numerous
factors could be responsible for the intracity and intercity differences in
crime rates. These factors are just one of the topics under debate by criminologists
which has produced volumes of literature on the topic. It is beyond the scope
and purpose of this Fact Book to fully explain the reasons for these trends.
While an agreement on the reasons for these trends has yet to be reached,
criminologists do agree that certain factors are antecedents or correlates of
crime. We will briefly present a limited number of these factors in Section
four.
Turning our attention
to Figure 1, one of the first aspects evident is elevated violent crime rates
for the cities of
A
second point to note is that limited inter-jurisdiction variability is evident
in Figure 1. That is, with a few exceptions for short time periods, there are
larger or smaller differences between the different jurisdictions, for the most
part the inter-jurisdiction variation for the jurisdictions remain relatively
constant. The cities of
Given the
relatively consistent inter-jurisdiction variation, we are able to describe a
pattern that is also consistent across groups over time. Beginning in 1975, the
violent crime rates of these jurisdictions ranged from a low of 478 violent
crimes per 100,000 persons in
Following this
initial peak, a downward trend was evident for the next three years. With the
downward trend, violent crime rates returned to the rates experienced in
communities nearly ten years earlier in Phoenix, and the state of Arizona;
however, the violent crime rates remained slightly above the 1975 rates for the
rest of the jurisdictions and significantly higher for the city of Tucson.
Beginning
around 1984, the entire country including the State of
During the
overall upward trend that occurred from 1984 to the early 1990's, there was
some fluctuation in rates for the
Before
fully describing the trends in murder rates, a cautionary note regarding the
graphical display of crime trends in
With cautions
aside, we can proceed with the description of the murder rates over the past 25
years. The first notable fact evident from the murder rate trend is that the
murder rate for the
An in depth
examination of the murder rate at the city level demonstrates a much different
pattern as compared to the state and county trends. As indicated in Figure 2,
in comparison to other jurisdictions examined
Interestingly,
the large decline that was recently experienced in the
The second
notable change in
Figure 3
presents the graphical trends for the forcible rape rates by each jurisdiction
between 1975 and 2000. One of the
primary facts that become clear in examining the forcible rate trends is that
tremendous variation appears to have occurred within and between Arizona cities
over time while state and national trends remained relatively stable for the
25-year time period. It is important to
realize that dramatic changes in rape rates that appear for
From 1975 to
2000, the State of Arizona forcible rape rate fluctuated between a high of
approximately 45 forcible rapes for every 100,000 persons residing in Arizona to
a low of approximately 30 forcible rapes for every 100,000 persons. Similarly,
the national rate of forcible rapes has fluctuated between a low of
approximately 26 forcible rapes for every 100,000 persons, to a high of 42
forcible rapes for every 100,000 persons.
In 2000, state rates were slightly lower than they were in 1975 while
national rates were slightly higher.
This stable
trend is interesting given that some researchers have argued that the reporting
of a rape to law enforcement authorities has increased over time.
Criminologists have argued that due to cultural decline in “victim blaming” and
increased support and resources for victims of sexual assault, more victims
report incidents to authorities. However, researchers also agree that sexual assaults
including crimes classified as forcible rapes most likely remain as one of the
most underreported crimes that occurs.
The three
The
The anomaly in
this trend graph is the city of
Robbery
rate trends in the jurisdictions examined demonstrate a significant amount of
intracity variation, with substantially less intercity variation. That is, over
the twenty-five year period illustrated in Figure 4, jurisdictions generally
held their positions relative to one another regarding the number of robberies
that occurred. The highest robbery rate was for the city of
Trends
robbery rates over time were similar across jurisdictions. Three pronounced
peaks occurred between 1975 and 2000. The first peak occurred in 1980 and 1981
and was culmination of an increase that began for most jurisdictions around
1977. This spike in the robbery rate was most dramatic for the city of
While the
third rise in robbery rates was almost insignificant in some jurisdictions,