Robberies, Gun Violence Increased Last Year, Justice Report Says

Americans were robbed and victimized by gun violence at greater rates last year than the year before, even though overall violent and property crime reached a 32-year low, the Justice Department said yesterday.

Experts said the increases buttress reports from the FBI and many mayors and police chiefs that violent crime is beginning to rise after a long decline. Bush administration officials expressed concern but stressed that it is too soon to tell if an upward trend in violence had begun.

Last year, there were two violent gun crimes for every 1,000 individuals, compared with 1.4 in 2004, according to the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. There were 2.6 robberies for every 1,000 persons, compared with 2.1 the year before.

"This report tells us the more serious events -- robbery and gun crimes -- increased, and the FBI already told us homicides increased," said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Boston's Northeastern University.

"So while the report shows the more numerous but least serious violence -- simple assaults, which is pushing and shoving -- went down, the mix got worse in terms of severity. That wasn't a very good trade-off," Fox said.

A preliminary FBI report in June on crimes reported to police showed a 4.8 percent increase in the number of murders and 4.5 percent increase in the number of robberies in 2005.

With congressional elections approaching, these reports could pose political problems for the administration. Department officials have been scurrying to understand and deal with the problem.

Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty listened to complaints about dwindling federal anti-crime aid from several dozen mayors and police chiefs at a public meeting in Washington on Aug. 30. Several days later, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told reporters that cities will have to work harder but should not count on more federal money because of growing demands in the fight against terrorism.

Dean Esserman, the police chief of Providence, R.I., said all but a few cities have fewer police officers than in 2001, with big reductions in New York, Boston and Detroit "because of the loss of federal money." A Clinton administration program paid for local departments to hire community-oriented police officers, but the Bush administration stopped the money for such hiring.

"I believe in homeland defense, but I also believe in crime-fighting," Esserman said. "I don't want one neglected for the other. Every year we're losing 16,000 people to murder, mostly young people and mostly killed by guns, and that's more than three times the number that died at the World Trade Center" in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.