Record Number of Americans Victims of Violent Crime

The nation’s capital remained the U.S. murder capital in 1990, but Miami had the greatest rate of all violent crime, according to information released Saturday by the FBI.

A record number of Americans, 732 per 100,000 residents, were affected last year by increased violent crime--murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, the FBI said in its Uniform Crime Reports. In 1989 the figure was 664.

Miami’s overall violent crime rate jumped by almost 660, to 4,353 reported acts of violence per 100,000 people. The main cause was an increase in robberies.

The FBI’s overall crime rate, which includes property crimes, rose by a more modest 1.4%, to 5,820 per 100,000 residents. Atlanta was at the top of this list.

The overall crime rate increase was far smaller than that of violent crime because property crimes--burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft--comprise 87% of all incidents in the FBI’s crime index.

Experts continued to blame the increase in crime on drugs.

Murder was up 8% last year, affecting 9.4 of every 100,000 people, according to calculations made by the Associated Press based on the FBI report. Washington had a murder rate of 77.8 homicides per 100,000 residents.

Rape increased 8.1%, to 41.2 per 100,000, according to the figures, while robbery rose 10.3%, to 257 per 100,000, and aggravated assault was up 10.6%, to 424.1 incidents per 100,000.

The war on drugs “created a new class of organized crime, and this class is more violent than the old organized crime because it’s made up of more crime-prone people: young, disenfranchised kids,” said Gene Stephens, a professor at the University of South Carolina’s College of Criminal Justice.

The FBI figures differ substantially from those in last week’s National Crime Survey, which showed a 3% decline in the number of crimes in 1990--due primarily to a drop in thefts.

The crime survey interviews people who detail many unreported crimes, while the FBI counts only crimes reported to police.

Where Cities Rank on Overall Crime Cities ranked in order of their overall rate of crime--murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft in 1990. It is based on number of crimes per 1,000 people.

1990 1990 ’89 Rank Rate Rank 1. Atlanta 192.4 2 2. Miami 190.2 1 3. Dallas 155.2 3 4. Ft. Worth 149.8 4 5. St. Louis 146.7 5 6. Kansas City 129.5 9 7. Seattle 126.0 7 8. Charlotte, N.C. 125.9 6 9. San Antonio 124.8 10 10. New Orleans 124.4 17 11. Detroit 121.9 14 12. Tucson 118.8 11 13. Boston 118.5 15 14. Austin, Tex. 117.1 21 15. Minneapolis 114.4 13 16. Houston 113.4 20 17. El Paso 112.4 22 18. Portland 111.0 8 19. Chicago 110.6 28 20. Oakland 109.1 12 21. Washington 107.7 26 22. Phoenix 107.6 19 23. Oklahoma City 106.1 18 24. Baltimore 106.0 33 25. Fresno 105.3 16 26. Jacksonville, Fla. 104.6 24 27. Memphis, Tenn. 102.0 37 28. Albuquerque 100.6 27 29. Columbus, Ohio 99.1 23 30. New York City 97.0 29 31. San Francisco 96.6 36 32. Toledo, Ohio 96.1 30 33. Long Beach 95.7 31 34. Tulsa, Okla. 95.3 35 35. Milwaukee 93.0 39 36. Los Angeles 92.3 34 37. San Diego 91.5 32 38. Sacramento 91.3 25 39. Cleveland 91.1 42 40. Wichita, Kan. 89.3 40 41. Buffalo, N.Y. 88.9 41 42. Pittsburgh, Pa. 87.6 38

* Source: These rankings, as reported by the Associated Press, are based on the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports and some local police statistics. The rate is based on the number of crimes per 1,000 people. Chicago’s figures exclude rapes because of how the city compiles sexual assaults. It would move up one place if those statistics were included.