Report: Violent crime down slightly in first half of 2017

By Christen Smith

The graph shows the percent change in crime reported to FBI’s UCR Program between the first half of 2017 and the first half of 2016. (Photo: FBI)
Crime rates declined marginally during the first half of 2017, according to a federal report released this week.
The FBI’s Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report shows both violent and property crimes fell 0.8 percent and 2.9 percent last year compared to the first six months of 2016. The rates for arson and larceny declined more than 3 percent while reported burglaries dropped twice as far to 6.1 percent behind 2016.
Reported murders increased 1.5 percent and rapes fell more than 4 percent — though the FBI clarifies a change in its definition likely spurred the decline.
“In 2016, the FBI director approved the recommendation to discontinue the reporting of rape data using the UCR legacy definition beginning in 2017,” the report reads. “Therefore, the rape data reported by those agencies using the UCR legacy definition are not included in this report.”
In 2011, FBI Director Robert Mueller approved a revamped version of the UCR’s 80-year-old definition of rape. The new definition — implemented into the FBI’s crime reporting systems in 2013 — reads: “Penetration, no matter how slight,

Source: Guns.com