ANCHORAGE — Alaska has the nation’s highest rate of sexual assault and violent crime has increased in the state, a new FBI report said.
The 2018 statistical analysis from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program said Alaska did not conform to a general national decline in violent crime, Alaska Public Media reported.
The annual report uses statistics from law enforcement agencies to provide an analysis of crime at the national, state and municipal levels.
Alaska saw an 11% increase in the number of sexual assaults reported to law enforcement in 2018, while nationally there were 2.7% more assaults, the report said.
Alaskans reported four times more sexual assaults than the national rate: 161.6 per 100,000 Alaska residents compared to 42.6 per 100,000 people nationally, the report said.
Violent crime in Alaska increased by 3% from 2017 to 2018 while falling 3% nationally, the report said.
However, the number of murders in Alaska fell by 24%, from 62 in 2017 to 47 in 2018, with 26 of those in Anchorage.
Alaska law enforcement agencies reported seven hate crimes in Alaska in 2018. That was an increase over 2017, when there were four reports, but a decrease from the 11 reports in 2016.
Four of the hate crimes in 2018 were based on bias against the victim’s race or ethnicity and were reported in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Kotzebue. Two hate crimes reported in Juneau centered on religion and another report in Fairbanks concerned disability status, the report said.
• This is an Associated Press report.
