Strangers committed an estimated 1.8 million nonfatal violent crimes in 2010, 38 percent of all nonfatal violent victimizations during the year, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics said today. That was a 77 percent decline from 7.9 million nonfatal violent crimes committed by strangers in 1993. From 2001 to 2010, the rate of violence committed by strangers declined 47 percent and the rate committed by offenders the victims knew declined by 41 percent.
More than half of robberies in 2005-10 were committed by strangers, down from nearly two-thirds in 1993-98. The FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports says that among homicides in which the victim-offender relationship could be determined, strangers committed between 21 percent and 27 percent of homicides from 1993 to 2008, compared to between 73 percent and 79 percent of homicides committed by offenders known to the victims.