It does not measure murder, however, and there are other differences that allow the two indexes to diverge. More than one of every three households was victimized by crime in the early and mid-1970s, but now fewer than one in four is. However, the numbers of violent crimes have remained high, and the FBI Index of Crime shows that the serious crime rate rose from 14.3 per 1,000 population in 1970 to 22.8 in 1980 before beginning to decline. In the 1980s and 1990s, serious crime reported to the police has leveled off and even shown signs of falling. The NCVS shows that household willingness to report crime to the police has risen since 1973 from 32.4 percent of crimes to 38.7 percent, nearly a 20 percent increase.
Studies show that reporting itself discourages crimes.
Some of the movement in the FBI numbers on serious crimes no doubt reflects this increased willingness to report to the police, as well as recording and data management improvements by police organizations. Therefore, the recent decline in reported crime probably understates the decline in actual crime. Still, the serious crime rate today is about three times higher than it was in 1960. Surveys of victims indicate a falling rate of serious crime over the past 20 years.