US crime rate up, ending decade of decline

The great crime drop of the booming '90s has finally bottomed out.

For the first time in a decade, the FBI is reporting the number of thefts, assaults, murders, and rapes is up across the United States in all regions of the country except the Northeast. Homicides, which criminologists consider the most reliable gauge of the nation's safety, were up 3.1 percent.

The increase brings to a close a decade of remarkable declines in illicit activity, which helped revitalize the nation's urban areas and brought a renewed a sense of civility and security for millions of Americans.

Even with this increase, crime rates remain some of the lowest in a generation. In New York, that's meant fewer barred windows and far more flower boxes on the city's old brownstones. And in leafy suburban Connecticut, doors firmly locked in the 1980s are now often left open, so neighbors or kids could drop by.

While criminologists warn this current up tick is a reason to reinvigorate the nation's crime-fighting efforts, they also note the increase was expected.

In part, this is because of the economic slowdown, an increase in the number of teens reaching their anticipated peak crime-committing years, and a wave of ex-drug dealers and gang members arrested in the 1980s returning to the streets after time in prison.

But there's another factor. After dropping so low, there was no where else for the crime rate to go. "I call it the criminal justice limbo stick," says James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. "There's only so low it can go. This just means we have to redouble our efforts."

Yet that in itself could be a challenge. With huge budget deficits looming at the local, state, and federal levels, crime-fighting and –prevention programs like after-school activities have already been cut.

And many more are on the block for next year. In Massachusetts, the state is proposing cuts of $10 million from after-school and prevention programs, almost half of them affecting "at-risk" kids.

On the federal level, the Bush administration is proposing to reduce by 80 percent the Community Oriented Policing Services program (COPS) that helped put 115,000 new police on the beat since 1994. At the same time, the FBI's traditional role is shifting from taking on gangs, mobsters, and kidnappers to focus more on the threat of terrorism.

The combination of those factors, along with the hike in the crime rate, is already prompting demands on Capitol Hill to restore some crime-fighting funds .

"We can fight violent crime and wage the war on terror at the same time, but the resources need to be there," said Senator Joseph Biden (D) Delaware in a statement. "So far, this administration has failed to provide them."

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