(ThyBlackMan.com) It seems as though crime is all around us – and thanks to the cycle of 24/7 news, violent crime stories are seemingly the only news that gets reported! Is it a real threat to most people or an inflated rarity? Well, the FBI have the stats. Every January, the FBI release their findings on the previous year. This year, we can take a look at the crime stats from 2016, while 2018 will allow us to take in the crime stats from this year, and so on. This means we can truly go through the crimes that happen most in America and see how we can take this information into our own lives. It is worth bearing in mind that these figures don’t take into account unreported crimes, or multiple instances.
If you’ve noticed more cases of violent crime popping up in your newspaper or being broadcast over the airwaves – you might be onto something. From January through June 2016 in the FBI Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, which covers half
of the year, the FBI found from data provided by over thirteen thousand law enforcement agencies that there was an increase in violent crime. Violent crime – murder, manslaughter, sexual assault, assault and robbery increased by five percent overall in the category. Individually, instances of these crimes shot up – assault by six and a half percent, while murders jumped up five percent. Sexual assaults jumped by four point four percent, and robberies had a three point two percent increase. These figures are a year on year increase from the same January to June period the year before. This might be scary to take into account – but remember that there is always specialist help available in the aftermath of violent crimes.
Violent crimes in most cases can also be prevented by being vigilant. It’s also worth mentioning that being wrongly accused of a violent crime is just as scary as being involved in one – so seek the aid of a criminal defense lawyer. A black mark against your name helps the budgets of law enforcement agencies stay high – so even if you are wrongly accused, you could still find a metric ton of blame to shift thanks to heavy-handed law enforcement agencies. False accusations are rare, but they still exist and should be treated with importance.
Some better news comes in the category of property crime. If you’re a homeowner or business owner – you’ll be glad to know that the category decreased by nought point six percent year on year. It is a tiny decrease, but a decrease nonetheless. Burglaries went down three point four percent while larceny-thefts fell by nearly one percent. However, if you’re a car owner, you might be worried by the fact that motor vehicle thefts rose by nearly seven percent from 2015. Take greater care of your car, but don’t slack on the care of your home and business!
If you stay vigilant, you can avoid crime – look after yourself, both physically and legally and be cautious about your environment to steer clear of crime. We’ll check back in next year!
Staff Writer; Carl Jones
