Crime in Tennessee dipped for the third year in a row in 2013, according to an annual report released Tuesday by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
The "Crime in Tennessee 2013" report (pdf) trumpeted a 5.4 percent drop in serious crimes since 2012, but also noted the continued rise of crimes against society, which include charges related to meth and other illegal drugs.
The TBI listed murders, rape, aggravated assaults and theft among more serious "Group A" offenses. DUI and trespassing cases were included in a list of "Group B" offenses that also dropped from 2012 numbers.
The victim tally for serious crimes in Tennessee dropped from 421,223 in 2012 to 389,871 in 2013, according to a report.
Verna Wyatt, a victims rights advocate and the executive director of Tennessee Voices for Victims, said the report offered plenty of "great news."
"It means somebody is doing something right," she said.
Still, Wyatt was mindful of the fact that there are still hundreds of thousands of victims who grapple with crime every year.
"I don't want to get real excited about something that needs a whole lot of attention," she said. "We still have a long way to go."
Law officers waging a statewide war on methamphetamine struggled against a growing foe in 2013. They reported finding 1,995 meth labs in 2013, a jump of more than 11 percent since 2012.
But Tommy Farmer, director of TBI's Methamphetamine and Pharmaceutical Task Force, said that early numbers from 2014 suggest next year's report could show a drop in meth labs.
"We are impacting them, and we've made some inroads," he said.
