WASHINGTON, June 9 (UPI) -- The FBI says preliminary crime statistics from 2007 show drops in both violent crime and property crime in the United States.
The FBI said statistics show violent crime dropped 1.4 percent compared to 2006, reversing two straight years of increases, with decreases in all four of the FBI's major categories: rape (down 4.3 percent), homicide (2.7 percent), robbery and aggravated assault (each down 1.2 percent).
Property crimes also took a tumble, down 2.1 percent from 2006. This included arson-related crime, which was down a significant 7 percent, the FBI said.
The highlights of the new numbers included a big drop in homicides in large cities with populations of 1 million or more -- a steep 10 percent decline from 2006 in that category. But homicides in smaller cities with between 50,000 and 99,999 people went up by 3.7 percent.
Broken down regionally, the FBI found that both violent and property crimes fell in three of the nation's four regions, while only the South saw a crime uptick, driven by jumps in the homicide and robbery rates. The Northeast saw the biggest drop in violent crime, led by an 8.6 percent reduction in the homicide rate.
