According to the annual National Crime Victimization Survey, the 15-percent decline in 2000 was the steepest one-year drop since 1973, when the department began tracking the information.

"We believe that this is a very important step forward in the reduction of crime," said U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. "When you get a 15-percent reduction, that's one out of every seven crimes that would have happened last year doesn't happen this year, and that in our mind is a very favorable sign."

Sociologists credit the drop in violent crimes to several factors, among them higher incarceration rates, more police officers, higher educational standards and better educational opportunities, less drinking of hard liquor, less drunken driving, lower rates of divorce, a good economy, and the legalization of abortion in 1973, which resulted in fewer unwanted children.

The report, compiled by interviews with a national sample of 160,000 people older than age 12, showed that 55 percent of robberies in 2000 were carried out with a weapon, with 26 percent involving a firearm, 14 percent committed with a knife, and 13 percent involving other weapons (in the rest of the robberies, the type of weapon was not specified).

The start of a decline in violent crime was evident early in the last decade. According to the report, from 1993 through 2000, rapes dropped 60 percent, aggravated assaults declined 52.5 percent, and motor-vehicle theft fell 52.4 percent.

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