Twin Falls, Idaho (KMVT-TV) A new report reveals the rate of violent crime in the United States is up for the first time in nearly twenty years.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics collected data via telephone surveys.
Homicide, assault, sex crimes all these classify under violent crime.
But are we seeing an increase in overall crimes?

The justice department reports that assault is up 22% attributing to the overall increase in violent crime rates. We spoke with area agencies to see if this is the case for them as well.

Lt. Craig Stotts, Twin Falls Police Department says, "what we see is there's a slight uptick in assaults and batteries."

But Lt. Stotts adds overall, the crime rate has increased less than one percent.

"So we tend to see peaks and valleys in different categories of crimes."

The Twin Falls County Sheriff's Office is reporting average numbers, but the more serious crimes are down 15% compared to last year.
One of the examples–burglaries.

Don Newman, Chief Deputy, Twin Falls County Sheriff's Office says, "our burglaries are down quite a bit for the year, but we've got two months go and hopefully we see a huge increase in that, but I think it will go up a little bit, I think we'll still be below where we were last year."

At this point the number of crimes against persons in the county is 81.
Last year saw a total of 71, but Newman adds he usually finds there's an increase over the holidays.

Newman adds, "there tends to be a little more stress involved. Families wanting to be able to provide for their families, provide gifts, the stress goes up."

Economic stressors also play a factor.

"We haven't had the economy issues that other states have had, where's people's basic needs are met, you don't have that spike in crime," adds Newman.

The highly anticipated annual crime statistics for 2011 won't be available until October 29th. According to CNN, experts anticipate it will show a continued decline in overall crime.