January 2, 1999
Web posted at: 6:36 p.m. EST (2336 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The 1997 murder rate in the United States declined to its lowest level in 30 years, but young Americans were killing each other with firearms with greater frequency, the Justice Department reported Saturday.

There were 18,209 murders, or 6.8 for every 100,000 people, the lowest since 6.2 per 100,000 in 1967. The rate was down from highs of 10.2 per 100,000 in 1980 and 9.8 in 1991. In 1950 the rate was 4.6 per 100,000.

"Our cities are now the safest they have been in a generation," the White House said in a written statement. "A variety of studies show that crime, and especially homicide, should continue to decline into the next year, and that is good news for Americans in 1999."

The Clinton administration attributed the declines to a 1994 crime law strongly supported by the president.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics released its analysis of FBI crime data for 1997 showing that while city dwellers remained more likely to be murder victims, much of the decline in the murder rate was posted in the nation's largest cities. In cities with populations above 1 million, the murder rate fell from 35.5 per 100,000 in 1991 to 20.3 per 100,000 in 1997.

Still, while firearm killings by 25-year-olds and older plummeted by roughly half to about 5,000 between 1980 and 1997, gun killings by young people 18 to 24 increased from about 5,000 in 1980 to more than 7,500 in 1997.

The report also found that from 1976 to 1997, 85 percent of white murder victims were killed by whites and 94 percent of black victims were killed by blacks.

During the same period, blacks were seven times more likely than whites to be homicide victims and eight times more likely than whites to commit homicides.

Other findings:

• Americans 18-24 were the most likely murder victims in 1997, with a rate of 33.2 per 100,000 people.
• Murder rates generally were higher than average in the South and on the West Coast and lower in New England and the Rocky Mountain states.
• Men were most likely to be the killers and the victims. Men were more than nine times more likely than women to commit murder, and both men and women killers are more likely to target male victims.

In related news, according to preliminary data released from cities nationwide, Chicago is the nation's 1998 murder capital, despite experiencing a 10-year low in murders. The city had 698 homicides in 1998, surpassing New York City's homicide totals for the first time ever. New York saw a dramatic drop in homicides with 629 last year, after a 1990 high of 2,262.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.