The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) today issued a new procedure for calculating the prevalence of crime in the U.S. each year. BJS said the prevalence rate counts the number of persons who experienced at least one victimization during the year, compared to a victimization rate, which counts the number of victimizations per year.
The 76 percent decline in U.S. violent victimization rates from 1993 to 2010 was greater than the 63 percent decline in prevalence rates. Both the number of victims and the average number of crimes experienced by each victim declined over time, but the number of victimizations declined at a faster rate. In 2010, the average number of violent crimes per victim was 1.8, down from 2.7 violent crimes per victim in 1993. About one percent of the population age 12 or older experienced one or more violent victimizations in 2010. The 4.9 million violent victimizations that occurred were experienced by 2.8 million victims.