Murders dip, rapes rise

Murders in Utah and across the United States fell in 2004, and for national totals it was the first time in five years, the FBI reported Monday. Rapes increased slightly last year.

In Utah in 2003, there were 60 homicides, 919 rapes, 1,258 robberies and 3,652 aggravated assaults.

In 2004, homicides dropped to 46. Rapes went up to 943 but robberies decreased to 1,236. Aggravated assaults also dropped to 3,424.

Nationwide, the number of violent crimes fell by 1.2 percent last year. Property crimes — burglaries, larceny/theft and car theft — dropped 1.1 percent in 2004 compared to 2003.

In Utah, there was a 4.2 percent drop in total violent crimes from 2003 to 2004.

In 2003, there were 5,889 violent crimes or 250.4 per 100,000 residents. In 2004, there were 5,649 violent crimes or 236 per 100,000 residents.

The drop of 240 crimes in a year may be attributed to a focus on community-oriented policing, said Salt Lake County Sheriff's Sgt. Paul Jaroscak.

Community-oriented policing is an effort by officers to contact residents and business owners and teach them how to recognize the symptoms of crimes. That way, officers are being proactive rather than reactive, Jaroscak said.

It takes more resources to respond to a crime scene than to prevent crime from happening, he said.

In the United States in 2004, the last full year for which statistics are available, there were 16,137 murders. That was about 350 fewer than in 2003, according to the FBI data. The decrease is the first since 1999, although smaller than what the FBI reported in June. Chicago was largely responsible for the drop, recording 150 fewer murders in 2004 than in 2003.

The number of rapes, however, has increased in three of the past four years, according to the FBI data. In all, rapes increased by 0.8 percent to 94,635 rapes — about 750 more than in 2003.

Rapes are up nearly 5 percent since 2000, while murders have increased by 3.5 percent, according to the FBI data.

At the same time, the rates of all violent crimes, measured as the number of crimes for every 100,000 people, have dropped over that same period. Indeed, the crime rate is at a 30-year low, government data have shown.

Despite the historical trend, the FBI included a "crime clock" in its report that shows a violent crime is committed every 23.1 seconds. A murder occurs roughly every half-hour.

Crime statistics for cities with populations above 10,000 can be found at wid.ap.org/documents/fbi/ucr2004citylist.pdf

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E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com