In the last decade the homicide rate declined to levels last seen in the mid-1960s.

A new report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows homicides have fallen to record lows in the U.S.

The nation’s homicide rate fell to 4.8 homicides per 100,000 U.S. residents in 2010, its lowest level in four decades, the Bureau of Justice Statistics announced today. Much of the decline was in the nation’s largest cities, those with a population of one million or more, where the homicide rate dropped dramatically from 35.5 homicides per 100,000 residents in 1991 to a low of 11.9 per 100,000 in 2008.


The homicide rate doubled from the early 1960s to the late

1970s, increasing from 4.6 per 100,000 U.S. residents in 1962
to 9.7 per 100,000 by 1979.

The homicide rate declined sharply from 9.3 homicides per
100,000 in 1992 to 4.8 homicides per 100,000 in 2010.


 Between 1999 and 2008, the number of homicides remained
relatively constant, ranging from a low of 15,552 homicides in
1999 to a high of 17,030 homicides in 2006. These homicide
numbers were still below those reported in the 1970s, when the
number of reported homicides first rose above 20,000 (reaching
20,710 in 1974). The Bureau of Justice Statistics Report:http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf