Crime: Higher Than Ever

The FBI last week published its annual horror story, the Uniform Crime Reports, which naggingly showed a 16% leap in serious offenses. J. Edgar Hoover’s statistics placed last year 7% ahead of 1966 in rapes, 9% in aggravated assaults, 11% in murders and 28% in robberies. Two out of every 100 Americans, said the FBI, fell prey to a major felony. This chilling statistic is misleading as an index for the nation as a whole, since most crime is concentrated in the limited demographic area of the city ghetto.

Hoover’s report, which came out a full month later than usual, contains a disconcerting analysis of rising crime since 1960, the span of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. FBI statistics usually stir debate. This edition enlarged the argument to include Hoover’s motives for its late release. Did he time it to spur the Democrats into taking a stiffer law-and-order stance? Or was he striking back at those party members who urged that he be retired by the next Administration? The FBI insists that the delay was caused by the complexity of the fact-finding job. Whatever Hoover’s aim, he hit two targets. The gun, said the report, was used in 63% of all murders, 21% of the aggravated assaults and 63% of the armed robberies. Moreover, as crime rose, the rate of cases solved dropped by 8%. Last year, said the FBI, only one in five crimes was solved.