Washington, U.S.A. — Strangers committed about 1.8 million nonfatal violent crimes in 2010, or about 38 percent of all nonfatal violent victimizations during the year, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced on December 11. This represents a 77 percent decline from 7.9 million nonfatal violent crimes committed by strangers in 1993, according to the earliest available data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).

During a more recent period 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. The percentage declines for these two rates were not statistically different.

In the NCVS, nonfatal violent crimes include rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault. Simple assault (assault not involving an injury or a weapon) made up 60 percent of violent victimizations committed by strangers in 2010, followed by aggravated assault (20 percent), robbery (17 percent) and rape or sexual assault (two percent).

More than half (52 percent) of all robberies in 2005-10 were committed by strangers, down from nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of robberies in 1993-98. Aggravated assaults and simple assaults committed by strangers also declined between the two periods, while the percentage of rapes and sexual assaults remained stable.

Based on data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), 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.

In 2010, males (9.5 victimizations per 1,000 males) experienced violence by strangers at nearly twice the rate of females (4.7 per 1,000). From 1993 to 2010, males (down 83 percent) experienced a larger decline than females (down 76 percent) in the rate of violence committed by strangers.

In each time period studied, young adults ages 18 to 24, people who were never married, and American Indians or Alaska Natives had the highest rates of violent victimization by a stranger among all groups in the respective categories. In 2005-10, people age 65 or older experienced the lowest rates (1.6 per 1,000) of violent victimization by strangers.

Other findings from 2005-10 include:

• Persons in urban areas experienced higher rates of violent victimizations by strangers than persons in suburban and rural areas.
• A higher percentage of violence by strangers occurred in public places (51 percent) (e.g., commercial establishments, parking lots or garages, open areas, streets or aboard public transportation) than in private places (26 percent).
• Strangers committed about nine percent of violent crimes that occurred in the victim’s home.
• About half of violent victimizations committed by strangers occurred while the victims were away from home traveling, shopping or doing leisure activities.
• About 10 percent of violent crimes committed by strangers involved a firearm, compared to five percent of violent crimes committed by someone the victim knew.
• About 22 percent of victims of violence committed by strangers were injured, compared to 31 percent of victims who knew the offender.

The NCVS collects information from victims on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of criminal victimization, using a nationally representative sample of about 40,000 households comprising nearly 75,000 persons. In the FBI’s SHR program, a part of the Uniform Crime Reporting program, law enforcement agencies report monthly supplemental data about homicide incidents with details on location, victim, and offender characteristics.

The report, Violent Victimization Committed by Strangers, 1993-2010 (NCJ 239424), was written by BJS statistician Erika Harrell. The report, related documents and additional information about the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ statistical publications and programs can be found on the BJS website at http://www.bjs.gov.

Image Courtesy : Daryl Lang / Shutterstock.com

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The San Bernardino County month-long trial of ex-detective Anthony Nicholas Orban has ended with the jury of eight women and five men delivering guilty verdicts on all eight counts. The deliberation took less than a day. Orban will attend another two day trial on Tuesday, June 19 to face a sanity hearing; if he is found to be sane he will face a life sentence in prison.

Orban, a former Iraqi marine veteran, was accused of kidnapping and raping a waitress April 3, 2010. He was charged with one count of kidnapping, two counts of rape, two counts of forced oral copulation, two counts of penetration with a foreign object, and one count of criminal threat. According to the LA Times, the victim gave unflinching, graphic testimony of the attack that was the most compelling evidence in the trial.

Orban kidnapped the waitress at gunpoint and forced her to drive to Fontana Storage Facility. He then punched, slapped, choked, and took cell phone photos of her during the rape. He then shoved his police service weapon in her mouth and threatened to kill her if she did not stop crying. She testified that at the end of the assault “he pulled the gun out and said, ‘I think we’ll continue this in the desert.’” When Orban became distracted by a cell phone call, the woman ran back to her car and drove to a nearby liquor store for help. Police later found Orban’s weapon in her car with his name on it.

Obran admitted to attacking the woman, but claims that he was “unconscious” of his actions because of his antidepressant, Zoloft. The sanity hearing that is to be held on June 19 will determine whether or not this defense is valid. If Orban is found legally insane, at least at the time of the crime, he will be sent to a mental health facility for treatment and could be released later.

James Blatt, Orban’s attorney, stated, “what it comes down to is whether, at the time of this incident, he understood the difference between right and wrong.” Elyn Saks, head of the Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy, and Ethics has stated that the insanity defense in any case is a “high hurdle” and that this defense is “a difficult case to make, and it’s a difficult case to win.”

The defense’s sole witness is Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist from New York and a critic of psychiatric drugs. Dr. Breggin has already testified that Orban suffered from a psychological break after he stopped his medication and then resumed taking it at a full dosage.

The victim also testified that at the end of the assault Orban asked her, “who are you? How did I get here? Whose car is this?”

Deputy District Attorney Debbie Ploghaus has called the Zoloft defense a “bunch of baloney.” Dr. Douglas Jacobs, a clinical professor at Harvard University, has stated that Zoloft is completely safe and that Orban’s actions probably were influenced by his alcohol consumption that night.

Orban had eight margaritas and two pitchers of beer that he split with a friend, former prison guard Jeff Jelinek. Jelinek testified that Orban was looking for sex that night. Jelinek was also present when Orban kidnapped the woman and picked him up after the assault. Although he was originally charged as an accessory to false imprisonment and assault he worked out a deal with the District Attorney’s office and entered a plea of no contest, according to the Huffington Post.

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“A promise of false hope to the people of Roseland” is how the ISRA is characterizing Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s carefully-staged announcement of his latest gun control scheme.  During a Thursday press conference in Chicago’s war torn Roseland neighborhood, Emanuel announced his support for a state-wide handgun tax and registration package.

This latest attack on law-abiding firearm owners features a $65 per handgun tax along with a host of oppressive regulations designed to discourage private firearm ownership.  In his address, Emanuel tried to dupe Roseland residents into believing that taxing and regulating law-abiding firearm owners was the key to solving the growing problem of criminal violence in their neighborhood.

The ISRA believes that Emanuel’s scheme is unnecessary, divisive, and unenforceable.  Currently, there are dozens of federal and state laws that prohibit criminals from owning and transferring firearms.  As with other gun control proposals, Emanuel’s scheme pits the interests of law-abiding citizens against one another while ignoring criminal enterprises and the terror they spawn.

And, of course, nowhere in this proposal is there any suggestion as to how the government would extract the $65 fee from gang bangers and street thugs.  All in all, Emanuel’s proposal is a bad idea that comes at a bad time for the law-abiding citizens of Illinois.  If this measure reaches the General Assembly, the ISRA will vigorously oppose it and defeat it.

“Rahm Emanuel offered nothing to the people of Roseland,” commented ISRA Executive Director, Richard Pearson.  “If he really cared about protecting the good citizens of Chicago, he’d be announcing his support for concealed carry and not telling citizens about plans for disempowering them further.  Just like his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel is long on media fluff and short on real solutions to real problems faced by real people every day.”

“I did find it interesting that Emanuel was flanked by Garry McCarthy and Mike Pfleger during his rail against law-abiding gun owners,” continued Pearson.  “McCarthy, of course, is Emanuel’s police superintendent and the guy responsible for suppressing reports of last summer’s flash mob attacks on the Mag Mile.

And, we all know Pfleger as the renegade priest who called for the murder of gun shop owners and legislators who vote against gun control bills.  Thus, Emanuel’s credibility on the issue of violent crime is no better than that of the joker that preceded him.”

The ISRA is the state’s leading advocate of safe, lawful and responsible firearms ownership.  For more than a century, the ISRA has represented the interests of millions of law-abiding Illinois firearm owners.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/iowademocrats/

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Can ice cream – a simple sweet treat – be the cause of violent crimes?

For two variables to be correlated, there needs to be a relationship—a third factor must be available to explain the relationship of the two variables.

In this case, the third factor explaining the relationship between ice cream sales and violent crime rates is weather. When the temperatures are warm and it is sunny, there are greater social interactions because more people are out enjoying the sun.

During the summer months, as the temperatures gets higher and the humidity increases, one of the best ways to cool off is to eat ice cream. In fact, in 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as well as the third Sunday of that month as the National Ice Cream Month.

As a brief overview of how popular ice cream truly is, about 1.52 billion gallons of ice cream, including both hard and soft-serve, was produced in 2009, a decrease of 1.2 percent over 2008. It also represents approximately 26.2 percent of the entire frozen dairy product market.

Due to the high percentage of social interaction during warmer months, violent crime also increases, with the highest rates occurring during heat waves, which could suggest that heat promotes aggression.

Recently, strings of break-ins and robbery of air conditioners have occurred along the country. When installing ACs, some people forget to bolt them into the window panes, making stealing them much easier.

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