About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

6 Alaska Just. F. 1 (1989-1990)

handle is hein.journals/aljufor6 and id is 1 raw text is: ALASKA JUSTICE FORUM A Publication of the Alaska Justice Justice Centel Statistica Anacilysis Unit Spring 1989 UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE Vol.6, No.1 Offense-Specific Crime Trends in Alaska - 1963 to 1987 - David L. Parry This is the second of two articles employing computerized crime- reporting data obtained from the FBI to examine crime trends in Alaska. The first article (Alaska Crime Trends - 1963 to 1987) discussed the origin and history of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, highlighted some of the pitfalls inherent in using UCR data to examine crime-related issues and critically examined trends in the number and rate of index crimes (i.e., murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny/theft and motor vehicle theft) reported annually to the FBI by Alaska law enforcement agencies. The present article focuses on statewide trends for each of the seven offenses included in the FBI's crime index throughout the twenty-five year period for which data are available. (Arson, which became the eighth index offense in 1979, is not included in this analysis.) As reported in the first article, HIGHLIGHTS INSIDE THIS ISSUE * Lawyers and government officials questioned for advice by residents of rural Alaska villages face a com- plex ethical situation (p. 3). * The Bureau of Justice Statistics examines pris- oner populations through- out the nation in 1988 (p. 2). UCR data for Alaska reveal a pattern of steady annual increases in the total number of reported index offenses, broken only in 1987 - the last year for which data are available - when the number of offenses which were reported was lower than for any year since 1982. The index crime rate (i.e., the number of index offenses per 100,000 people in the population), which escalated rapidly between 1963 and 1975, stopped increasing after 1975 and remained relatively constant until 1987, when it dropped lower than it had been in any year since 1974. The present article examines the frequencies and rates for each of the index offenses individually in order to determine the extent to which the patterns observed for all offenses combined also hold for the individual offenses. It also investi- gates the possibility that, for some offenses at least, the volume of index offenses reported in 1987, which is significantly lower than in any other recent year, may indicate a more general trend toward decreasing crime and not merely a one-year anomaly. Table 1 (p. 5) shows the number of offenses in each of the index crime categories which were reported to the FBI by Alaska law enforcement agencies each year from 1963 to 1987. This table re- veals considerable fluctuation from year to year in the number of crimes reported in all of the seven offense categories, but the general pattern is one of increasing frequency of crimes in nearly all categories. A somewhat different portrait of trends in the seven offense categories emerges when rates, rather than frequencies, are displayed, as shown in Table 2 (p. 6). This table presents annual rates per 100,000 people for each offense category. Analyzing crime trends by looking at changes in the rates of index offenses makes it possible to tell whether crime is increasing faster or slower than the population. Although the rates for most offenses have increased over the years (subject, of course, to varying amounts of random fluctuation), the rate for one offense - murder - has remained surpris- ingly constant, and several categories seem to have peaked in the early 1980s and show slight but unmistakable downward trends over the last several years. Of all the index offenses, murder (a category which also includes non- negligent manslaughter) has shown the least variation over the years. Although the number of murders reported each year has slowly edged upward as the population has increased, the murder rate has shown no such increase. The rate for 1986 was the lowest since 1965, and the rate shown for each of the last four years is lower than that for nearly half of the years prior to 1984. Unlike murder, both the frequency and rate of forcible rape have undergone tremendous increases over the past twenty-five years. The number of rapes reported in 1983, the year when the most rapes were reported, was over thirteen times greater than the number reported in 1963, and the rate in 1983 was about six times greater than it was in the low years of 1963, 1965 and 1967. Note, Please turn to TRENDS, page 4

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most