STATE CRIME RATE DIPS 8.5%\Stiff sentences credited for 3-year decline.Byline: Mark Katches Daily News Sacramento Bureau The overall state crime rate dropped 8.5 percent in 1995 - the third straight year that a drop was noted for crimes ranging from homicide homicide (hŏm`əsīd), in law, the taking of human life. Homicides that are neither justifiable nor excusable are considered crimes. A criminal homicide committed with malice is known as murder, otherwise it is called manslaughter. to car theft, Attorney General Dan Lungren Daniel Edward (Dan) Lungren (born September 22, 1946), is a Republican of the United States House of Representatives representing California's 3rd congressional district (see map), located in the suburbs of Sacramento where he has served since 2005. said Tuesday. Lungren attributed the drop in crime to tougher sentencing laws. "This is absolutely, positively, unequivocally good news," Lungren said. "The fact is we are witnessing a third straight year of falling crime, with an acceleration in the last two years. We are actually looking at setting several records for drops in all categories of crime." The Department of Justice statistics show a steep drop across the board in California - ranging from a 3.1 percent drop in homicides to an 11.4 percent drop in motor vehicle thefts Motor vehicle theft or grand theft auto is a criminal act of theft generally understood to refer to the stealing of automobiles, buses, motorcycles, snowmobiles, trucks, trailers or any other motorized vehicle legally allowed on public roads and highways, including attempted . The report covers 66 police and sheriff's departments serving 100,000 or more people, whose jurisdictions account for about 63 percent of the state's crimes. Smaller departments will be added to the 1995 report later. In most categories, crime was down in the city and county of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. in 1995. The crime rate also dropped 2 percent nationally in 1995. Lungren, who is exploring a possible bid for governor in 1998, also said he didn't believe the improving economy had any impact on the drop in crime. He also dismissed demographic statistics Among the kinds of data that national leaders need are the demographic statistics of their population. Records of births, deaths, marriages, immigration and emigration and a regular census of population provide information that is key to making sound decisions about national policy. that show the children of baby boomers See generation X. have not yet reached the crime-prone age. But there are 106,000 fewer men in the state between the ages of 15 to 30, the age range where most crime occurs. "The unemployment rate last year compared to 1994 shows that we had 180,000 additional men working and we have 106,000 fewer men in a crime-prone age group," said Vincent Schiraldi, executive director for the San Francisco-based Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. "You should expect a pretty powerful drop in the crime rate. Lungren is clearly putting his gubernatorial gu·ber·na·to·ri·al adj. Of or relating to a governor. [From Latin gubern spin on these crime statistics so he can take as much credit for them as possible.' In the first two months of 1996, homicides in Los Angeles were up sharply to 147, compared with 106 for the same period last year, police reported. However, most other types of crime decreased. |
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