This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The FBI on Monday released preliminary data showing violent crime in the western United States, which includes Utah, decreased by 5.8 percent last year while property crimes took a 2.5 percent dip.

The agency has not yet released statewide crime data for Utah, but it released statistics for the state's four cities with populations of at least 100,000.

Violent crime was stagnant in Salt Lake City, and property crime declined 4.7 percent.

The state's second-most populous city, West Valley City, had a 5.1 percent increase in violent crime, but property crimes dropped 8.3 percent.

West Jordan had a 51 percent increase in violent crime from 169 in 2009 to 255 in 2010. But property crimes declined 14.9 percent. West Jordan's per capita violent crime rate remains much lower than Salt Lake City and West Valley City.

West Jordan Police Sgt. Drew Sanders said the increase may reflect changes in recent years to the departments reporting system.

"We've worked to get it to reflect better what's actually occurring," Sanders said. For example, he said the department previously categorized incidents by the topic of the initial complaint. However, an officer who investigates a report of an unruly teen may find evidence of an assault, a sex crime or another violent offense.

"Before, they might have just reported it as an 'ungovernable juvenile,' " in accordance with the original police call, Sanders said. "We've changed how we code things, how we train our officers to view things that need to be reported."

Sanders noted that the department hadn't had a chance to review all the statistics in the report.

Violent crime increased 11 percent in Provo, but the city still reported far fewer numbers of such crimes than the other Utah cities of 100,000 or more. Property crimes in Provo decreased 8.6 percent.

Other states in the FBI's western region are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.

Nationwide, levels fell with a 5.5 percent drop in the number of violent crimes last year and a 2.8 percent drop in the number of property crimes, according to the FBI. The last nationwide increase in violent crime was in 2005, the FBI said.

The FBI reported that violent crime fell in all four regions of the country last year — 7.5 percent in the South, 5.9 in the Midwest, 5.8 percent in the West and 0.4 percent in the Northeast.

The bureau's preliminary statistics for 2010 are based on information from more than 13,000 law enforcement agencies.

Nationally, murder and non-negligent manslaughter declined 4.4 percent, forcible rape decreased 4.2 percent, robbery declined 9.5 percent, and aggravated assault was down 3.6 percent.

The downward trend for murder and non-negligent manslaughter was especially pronounced in the nation's smallest cities, where it went down 25.2 percent for cities with less than 10,000 people. Murder actually rose 3 percent in cities with populations of 250,000 to half a million.

In regard to property crimes, motor vehicle theft showed the largest drop in 2010 — 7.2 percent — followed by larceny-theft, which was down 2.8 percent and burglary, with a decline of 1.1 percent.

The Associated Press contributed to this article. —

More coming

P The FBI will release its full report for 2010 in the fall. To see the preliminary data, go to http://tinyurl.com/444ug4o.