Violent Crime Numbers Are Down in Louisiana and Nation

SHREVEPORT, LA - There is some good news on the crime front today. New data from the FBI shows violent crimes stats are down for the year.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program has released the Quarterly Report for January-March of this year and the numbers show some improvement across the nation.

Reported violent crime is down by more than 15% for the same three months from last year. The numbers of murders are down by more than 26%.

What Other Crimes Show Declines?

Rape decreased by 25.7 percent

Robbery decreased by 17.8 percent

Aggravated assault decreased by 12.5 percent.

The report also shows property crimes are down by more than 15 percent.

The FBI has not yet released specific numbers and includes only percentages at this point because just 72% of law enforcement agencies have submitted detailed crime data to the federal agency. Detail numbers will be released once 80% of the agencies across the nation have reported crime stats to the FBI.

CBS reports Jeff Asher, co-founder of AH Datalytics, which tracks and analyzes criminal justice data says "we're talking about ... some of the lowest violent crime rates that we've seen since the early 1970s."

In a statement released to the media, Attorney General Merrick Garland says the feds have "poured every available resource into working with our law enforcement and community partners to drive down violent crime."

Garland Adds:

But we know there is so much more work to do, and that the progress we have seen can still easily slip away.

The Attorney General promises to continue to pursue criminals who are using guns to threaten our communities. He also pledges to invest in programs to enable more police officers to be hired and support community violence intervention programs.