The FBI has released it annual Crime in the United States report. The overall violent crime rate is down 1.4% from 2006. (The AP story reports that violent crimes are down 0.7%, but that is total crimes, not per capita rate.)

For trend data, see Table 1, which shows the indexes and per capita rates from 1988 to 2007. The overall violent crime index is down 38% from the peak, since we got tough on sentencing. The extent to which getting tough contributed to the drop remains hotly debated, but there is not much doubt it was one of the major factors. See prior post here.