Crime in the U.S. 2005

Crime in the U.S.
The Latest Stats Now Online

09/18/06

Violent crime rose 2.3 percent; property crime fell 1.5 percent. That’s the nationwide bottom line of our just published 2005 annual report on crime. Get all the stats here (and only here) through our improved, expanded, and easier-to-use web format.

Among the other top-line numbers in Crime in the U.S., 2005:

… Although violent crime totals grew over 2004, they have dropped 3.4 percent since 2001 and 17.6 percent since 1996;

… Burglaries—up 0.5 percent—were the only property crimes to rise in 2005;

… Murders were up 3.4 percent and arrests of juveniles for murder were up nearly 20 percent over 2004;

… Forcible rape decreased 1.2 percent, the only violent crime category to fall;

… Property crime victims lost an estimated $16.5 billion last year;

… Of the 14.1 million arrests made by law enforcement in 2005, drug violations accounted for more than any other offense.

… According to the Crime Clock 2005, a violent crime took place every 22.7 seconds and a property crime every 3.1 seconds in this country.

Here’s what else you can find in this report:

• Violent crime data, including murder, rape, robbery, and assault;
• Property crime stats, including burglary, larceny-theft, motor-vehicle theft, and arson;
• Expanded offense information for eight categories of crime, from the locations of robberies to the times of day of burglaries;
• The total number of crimes solved by arrest or by exceptional means;
• A variety of information on sworn police officers and civilian law enforcement;
• Crime totals reported by city and state;
• National property and violent crimes over the past two decades
• An explanation of how this report differs from the Department of Justice’s recent National Crime Victims Survey;
• Variables impacting crime rates and why we don’t rank cities’ crime levels;
• Why we’ve moved entirely to an electronic publication;
• Want to print key documents? You can do that, too, through downloadable files and spreadsheets.

What you won’t find in this year’s report:

• Hate crime statistics, which will be available later in the year;
• Special crime studies, which will be released as separate monographs;
• Stats for 2006: preliminary numbers for January-June 2006 will be available on this website in December and final stats for all of 2006 in the fall of 2007.

Once again, our thanks to our law enforcement partners around the nation for gathering and sharing the data in this report.

Resources: Crime in the U.S., 2005 | How and when the FBI began collecting crime statistics