Crime Rate Falling but Victims More Apt to File Police Reports

National crime statistics fell to a record low last year, the Justice Department said Sunday. It said there were significantly fewer deadly assaults, but a larger proportion of such violent incidents were reported than ever before.

The department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, reporting on its annual study, estimated that the number of crimes last year was little changed from the 1985 level, which was the lowest since the National Crime Survey was begun in 1973.

Personal and household crimes were down 2%--from an estimated 34.9 million crimes in 1985 to an estimated 34.2 million offenses last year, preliminary figures for 1986 show.

Yet, for the first time, at least half of all violent crimes were reported to police. Steven Schlesinger, director of the bureau, said that this demonstrated a greater willingness among victims to come forward.

Assault Rate Declined

The rate of assault dropped to its lowest point in the survey’s history. The bureau said that these decreased almost 9%--from 24 attacks per 1,000 population in 1985 to a rate of 22 to 1,000 in 1986.

The overall rate of violent crime dropped 7%, from 30 incidents per 1,000 people in 1985 to 28 per 1,000 last year. If the trend continues, Schlesinger said, the rate for all of the last year will be the lowest since 1973.

Personal thefts fell 3% and the household crime rate dropped 2%, but the declines were not statistically significant, the report said.

It also showed that 37% of all crime and 50% of violent crime was reported to police last year. Those figures were up 3% and 5%, respectively, from the year before.

The increase in the reporting of offenses, Schlesinger said, is consistent with FBI figures. Contrary to the Justice Department findings, FBI studies have shown a rise in crime in recent years.

Study Methods Differ

Schlesinger said that improved reporting caused the FBI, which counts only those crimes reported to police, to calculate a higher crime rate overall. The Bureau of Justice Statistics figures are based on interviews with more than 100,000 people age 12 or older in about 49,000 households.