WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Violent crime in the United States fell nationwide for the third consecutive year, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
After decreases in both 2017 and 2018, the violent crime rate dropped an additional one percent last year, says its 2019 edition of 'Crime in the United States' report.
The property crime rate in the U.S. decreased 4.5 percent in 2019, the report says.
'For the last three years the Department of Justice has worked tirelessly with our federal, state, local, and tribal partners to pursue those violent criminals, cartels, and gangs who seek to harm our communities,' said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen. He noted that violent crime rates had been increasing in the country during 2015-2016.
In 2019, a total of 16,554 law enforcement agencies reported Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data to the FBI.
In October 2017, the Department of Justice reinvigorated Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a crime reduction initiative targeting gun and gang violence in particular geographic hotspots. Each United States Attorney around the nation developed a customized strategy to prioritize prosecutions of the most violent criminals in the most dangerous areas in their district and to support locally based prevention and reentry programs to prevent additional violence. Independent academic research found that PSN successfully reduced violent crime by an average of 4 to 20 percent, and as high as 42 percent in some locations.
In November 2019, the Department launched Project Guardian, a comprehensive law enforcement strategy specifically aimed at gun crime.
The Department of Justice said in a press release that it charged the largest number of violent crime defendants in more than 25 years, and increased federal firearm prosecutions by 43 percent in the last three years.
On September 15, FBI published its Preliminary Uniform Crime Report, January-June, 2020, which revealed overall declines in the number of violent crimes and property crimes reported in the first six months of this year when compared with figures for the corresponding period of 2019.
While there were significant fall in the number of rapes and robberies, murders and aggravated assaults increased significantly.
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