BATON ROUGE, LA — The number of major crimes in Baton Rouge in 2012 decreased by 3.65 percent when compared to 2011, according to crime figures submitted to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program.

Violent Crimes Against Persons (murder, rape, robbery and assault) rose by 1.62 percent while Crimes Against Property (burglary, larceny, arson and motor vehicle theft) dropped by 4.66 percent.

Overall clearance (solve) rates declined from 22.2 percent to 18.61 percent, but were still above the national average for cities our size (17.9 percent).

Overall serious crime in Baton Rouge has now dropped for nine of the past twelve years, and since 2000 overall serious crime in Baton Rouge has declined by 33 percent.