A comparison of aggravated assault rate trends in rural, suburban, and urban areas using the UCR and NCS/NCVS, 1988–2005

Abstract

Between the 1980s and 2000s, the USA experienced wide swings in violence rates. These swings were not experienced equally across urban, suburban, and rural areas. We employed UCR and NCS/NCVS data to compare aggravated assaults rates in rural, suburban, and urban areas between 1988 and 2005. As expected, urban aggravated assault rates tended to remain the highest. However, the crime decline was much greater for urban relative to suburban and rural areas. Further, NCS/NCVS rates were not always higher than UCR rates for a given time and location. In the latter years, UCR–NCVS rate ratios were close to one for suburban and rural areas but remained about 1.5–2.0 in urban areas. This urban–nonurban difference has implications for testing criminological theories in non-urban areas.