Reports of all types of crimes, including murder and rape, increased last year for the first time in more than ten years, according to an annual FBI report.
Approximately 11.8 million crimes were reported to local and state law enforcement authorities in 2001--a 2.1 percent increase over the previous year.
The FBI declined to interpret the crime statistics, which were culled from reports by 17,000 state and local law enforcement agencies.
Specialists on crime attributed the national increase to a poor economy, a jump in the number of people being released from prison, and a flattening of what had been a decade-long trend of decreases in crime.
Although the number of crimes reported in 2001 was higher than the previous year, these statistics show crime is still down 10.2 percent when compared with 1997 and down 17.9 percent from 1992.
The national total of crimes indicated in the report does not include the 3,047 deaths attributed to the Sept. 11 attacks, which appear in a separate section of the report.