Research Paper on:
America and Violent Crime

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
2002 showed an increase of 1.3 percent as compared to the first six months in 2001 (FBI, 2002). This report is called the Crime Index and is generally viewed as  an indicator of the crime rates in the nation (FBI, 2002). It includes both violent crimes and property crimes (FBI, 2002). Violent crimes, the focus of this essay, include  murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault and robbery (FBI, 2002). In terms of violent crimes, the index rate decreased by 1.7 percent as compared to the same six months  in 2001 (FBI, 2002). This is not exactly the time to celebrate, however, because when murder and forcible rape are considered alone, we find that the incidence of murder increased  by 2.3 percent and forcible rape increased by 1.8 percent over the Crime Index report of the first six months of 2001 (FBI, 2002). Both aggravated assault and robbery crimes  dropped by 2.8 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively (FBI, 2002). Furthermore, the incidence of violent crime in suburban counties increased by 3.6 percent but it decreased in 1.9 percent in  rural counties (FBI, 2002). A joint report from the National Education Association and the Health Information Network provided these data regarding gun violence: * More than 80 Americans die every  day from gun violence (NEA-HIN, 2002). * American children and youth are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide and  9 times more likely to die from a firearm accident than children and youth in 25 other industrialized countries - combined (NEA-HIN, 2002). * Gun deaths among children under the  age of 15 is 12 times higher in America than in 25 other industrialized countries (NEA-HIN, 2002). * Between 1979 and 1999, more than 87,000 children and youth died from