Crime rates in Connecticut are lower than in the United States as a whole and have fallen significantly over the past decade, according to the 2021 Crime in Connecticut Report. [1] This pattern holds true overall, and for most types of crime. [1]
The total offense rate in Connecticut is 1,718 offenses per 100,000 (as of 2021), considerably below the national rate of 2,329 per 100,000. [1] The report also includes Crime Index statistics, used to compare across states, which is based on the rates of several crimes against persons (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault), and several property crimes (burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft). [1] The Crime Index fell by 30 percent in Connecticut from 2012 to 2021, from 87,853 crimes to 61,070. [1]
Violent crime rates in Connecticut are at their lowest point since 1974. [1] [2] The rate is less than half the national rate: 167 per 100,000 residents in Connecticut, compared to a national rate of 396 per 100,000 residents. [1] As of 2020, Connecticut has the fifth lowest rate of violent crime of U.S. states and territories, behind Maine, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico, and Vermont. [3] And the rate of violent crime fell over 40 percent between 2012 and 2021 (from 289 to 167 per 100,000), whereas the national violent crime rate did not change significantly over that period. [1]
Property crimes have also fallen over the past decade. In 2010, 78,386 property crimes and 10,057 violent crimes, including 130 instances of murder and 583 instances of rape were reported. [4] In 2015, property crimes had fallen slightly, to 73,703, and violent crimes had fallen significantly, to 7,925 violent crimes (a decline of 22%). [5] The decline continued through 2017, as reported in Connecticut's Uniform Crime Report. According to the report, 8,186 violent crimes were committed, of which 105 were homicides, 831 were rapes, 2,819 were robberies and 4,431 were aggravated assaults. [6]
Notable events related to crime in Connecticut include:
The Cheshire home invasion murders of three people occurred on July 23, 2007. Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters were raped and murdered by the two invaders, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky. Hawke-Petit's husband, Dr. William Petit, was beaten unconscious but survived. [7] The two perpetrators received death sentences in 2010 and 2012 respectively but were resentenced in 2015, when Connecticut abolished the death penalty. Steven Hayes was resentenced in 2016 to six life terms in prison. In 2017, Joshua Komisarjevsky and his lawyers filed a motion with the state Supreme Court for a new trial, claiming judicial errors during the pre-trial process. [8] [9]
The Hartford Distributors shooting on August 3, 2010, was a mass shooting at a beer distribution company in Manchester, Connecticut. 34-year-old former employee Omar Thornton fatally shot 8 coworkers and injured 2 others with a Ruger SR9 semi-automatic pistol. After hiding in an office, Thornton called 911 and told the operator that he was motivated by alleged racism he had experienced in the workplace. As police closed in, Thornton committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. [10]
At approximately 9:30 a.m. on December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty school children and six school employees before committing suicide at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Lanza had murdered his mother, who worked in the school, prior to the shooting. This incident remains one of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States, with the fourth-highest gunshot victim fatalities for a single shooting in U.S. history. [11]
The 1986 Murder of Helle Crafts, a Danish flight attendant murdered by her husband, American Richard Crafts, in Newtown, Connecticut, was notable for the method in which Richard disposed of her body using a woodchipper. It was also the case that lead to Connecticut’s first conviction of a murder without a body.
Between 1616 and 2005, 126 people were sentenced to death and executed in Connecticut. In April 2012, Governor Dannel Malloy signed an order to abolish the death penalty; Connecticut was the 17th state in the nation to do so. Inmates formerly sentenced to death had their sentences reduced to life imprisonment without parole. Connecticut was the fifth state to abolish the death penalty between 2007 and 2012. [12]
According to a 2014 FBI Uniform Crime Report, the Connecticut cities with the most violent crimes were Bridgeport (1,338), New Haven (1,380) and Hartford (1,380). Possible reasons for the higher crime rates in these cities include their larger populations and widespread poverty. [13]
Type of Crime | Bridgeport | New Haven | Hartford |
---|---|---|---|
Total Num. Incidents | 1338 | 1380 | 1380 |
Homicide | 11 | 19 | 12 |
Rape | 92 | 80 | 45 |
Robbery | 546 | 502 | 591 |
Connecticut has a state-level system that includes juvenile courts, detention centers, private facilities, and juvenile correctional facilities. After juveniles are released, they receive help from the Court Support Services Division of the Connecticut Judicial Branch and from the Department of Children and Family Services. Criminal statutes for juveniles and adults are the same. However, if the offender is under the age of 16, they will be sent to a juvenile detention center and transferred over to Adult Court once they turn 16. State assistance for juvenile offenders has a number of objectives: to lower the rate of repeat offending in the community, provide offender rehabilitation, and help offenders understand the consequences of their actions. Police officers who encounter juveniles breaking the law may warn them, talk to their parents, offer organizations that can provide them with assistance, and/or make an arrest. Underage offenders who are arrested must attend a hearing in front of a judge at a superior court who will decide whether or not to send them to a detention center. [14]
Cannabis is legal in Connecticut. Residents over the age of 21 can legally possess and consume marijuana. Possession of 1.5 oz of cannabis is legal. All adults can grow up to three mature and three immature plants at home, with a cap of twelve total plants per household.
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, commonly referred to as the 1994 Crime Bill, or the Clinton Crime Bill, is an Act of Congress dealing with crime and law enforcement; it became law in 1994. It is the largest crime bill in the history of the United States and consisted of 356 pages that provided for 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons which were designed with significant input from experienced police officers. Sponsored by U.S. Representative Jack Brooks of Texas, the bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Then-Senator Joe Biden of Delaware drafted the Senate version of the legislation in cooperation with the National Association of Police Organizations, also incorporating the Assault Weapons ban and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) with Senator Orrin Hatch.
A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objective, such as murder, assault, rape and assassination, as well as crimes in which violence is used as a method of coercion or show of force, such as robbery, extortion and terrorism. Violent crimes may, or may not, be committed with weapons. Depending on the jurisdiction, violent crimes may be regarded with varying severities from homicide to harassment. There have been many theories regarding heat being the cause of an increase in violent crime. Theorists claim that violent crime is persistent during the summer due to the heat, further causing people to become aggressive and commit more violent crime.
A home invasion, also called a hot prowl burglary, is a sub-type of burglary in which an offender unlawfully enters into a building residence while the occupants are inside. The overarching intent of a hot prowl burglary can be theft, robbery, assault, sexual assault, murder, kidnapping, or another crime, either by stealth or direct force. Hot prowl burglaries are considered especially dangerous by law enforcement because of the potential for a violent confrontation between the occupant and the offender.
Crime in Washington, D.C., is directly related to the city's demographics, geography, and unique criminal justice system. The District's population reached a peak of 802,178 in 1950. Shortly after that, the city began losing residents, and by 1980 Washington had lost one-quarter of its population. The population loss to the suburbs also created a new demographic pattern, which divided affluent neighborhoods west of Rock Creek Park from the less well-off neighborhoods to the east.
Northern Correctional Institution (NCI) was a high-security state prison in Somers, in the northern part of the U.S. state of Connecticut. Until its closure, the prison housed the state's male convicts serving long sentences for violent crimes; previously, it had also housed the death row for inmates before the abolition of the death penalty in Connecticut.
Crime has been recorded in the United States since its founding and has fluctuated significantly over time. Most available data underestimate crime before the 1930s, giving the false impression that crime was low in the early 1900s and had a sharp rise after. Instead, violent crime during the colonial period was likely three times higher than the highest modern rates in the data we have, and crime had been on the decline since colonial times. Within the better data for crime reporting and recording available starting in the 1930s, crime reached its broad, bulging modern peak between the 1970s and early 1990s. After 1992, crime rates have generally trended downwards each year, with the exceptions of a slight increase in property crimes in 2001 and increases in violent crimes in 2005–2006, 2014–2016 and 2020–2021.
Crime in Chicago has been tracked by the Chicago Police Department's Bureau of Records since the beginning of the 20th century. The city's overall crime rate, especially the violent crime rate, is higher than the US average. Gangs in Chicago have a role in the city's crime rate. The number of homicides in Chicago hit a 25-year high in 2021.
Capital punishment in Connecticut formerly existed as an available sanction for a criminal defendant upon conviction for the commission of a capital offense. Since the 1976 United States Supreme Court decision in Gregg v. Georgia until Connecticut repealed capital punishment in 2012, Connecticut had only executed one person, Michael Bruce Ross in 2005. Initially, the 2012 law allowed executions to proceed for those still on death row and convicted under the previous law, but on August 13, 2015, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that applying the death penalty only for past cases was unconstitutional.
Crime rates in Alabama overall have declined by 17% since 2005. Trends in crime within Alabama have largely been driven by a reduction in property crime by 25%. There has been a small increase in the number of violent crimes since 2005, which has seen an increase of 9% In 2020, there were 511 violent crime offenses per 100,000 population. Alabama was ranked 44th in violent crime out of a total 50 states in the United States.
Crime in California refers to crime occurring within the U.S. state of California.
According to the Louisiana Uniform Crime reporting program, there were 177,710 crimes reported in the U.S. state of Louisiana in 2018. 2018 had the least amount of non-violent criminal offenses since at least 2008. Violent crime decreased from 2017 to 2018, but 2012 still remains the lowest with its record of 22,868. Rape went up 12.7% from 2017 while murder/non-negligent manslaughter declined 7.8%. Additionally, robbery dropped 15% and aggravated assault dropped 1.5%. Handguns remain the leading murder weapon with a rate of 44.7% with firearm following close behind at 35.7%. Together, these two contribute for 80.4% of the murders. Similarly, robberies were committed mostly with firearms in 2018. Firearms were leading with 52% and strongarm listed with a percentage of 35%.
In 2015 there were 166,510 crimes reported in the U.S. state of Maryland, including 493 murders.
In 2019, 43,686 crimes were reported in the U.S. state of Michigan. Crime statistics vary widely by location. For example, Dearborn has a murder rate of only 2.1 per 100,000 while sharing borders with Detroit and Inkster, some of the highest rates in the state.
Crime in Minnesota encompasses a wide range of unlawful activities that occur within the state, regulated by both state and federal laws. While crime rates in Minnesota are generally below the national average, certain areas and types of crime have garnered public attention.
Crime in the U.S. state of Virginia has generally decreased from 2008 to 2014.
On July 23, 2007, two intruders invaded the home of the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut. The perpetrators Linda Hayes and Joshua Andrew Komisarjevsky initially planned only to rob the house, but went on to murder Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, 17-year-old Hayley Petit and 11-year-old Michaela Petit. Their father, Dr. William Petit, managed to escape despite sustaining severe injuries.
William A. Petit Jr. is an American former physician and politician. A Republican, he represented District 22 in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 2017 to 2023. A former physician, he was the sole survivor of the 2007 Cheshire home invasion, in which his wife and two daughters were murdered.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Yemen. Per capita, Yemen has one of the highest execution rates in the world. Capital punishment is typically carried out by shooting, and executions occasionally take place in public. In addition to being the only individual in the country with the authority to grant clemency, the President of Yemen must ratify all executions handed down by any court before they are carried out. Since 2014, large parts of the north and north-west of the country are under the control of the extremist Houthi rebel group, who have presided over an expansion in the use of the death penalty.