Both violent crime and property crime were down in Pittsburgh last year, mirroring a national trend, according to statistics released yesterday by the FBI.

The city's crime rate has continued to decrease at a rapid rate this year, falling 10 percent overall from January to May, Deputy Chief Paul Donaldson said.

Nationwide, the FBI's preliminary Uniform Crime Report shows that violent crime -- which includes murder, aggravated assault, robbery and rape -- dropped 2.5 percent in 2008. Property crime -- such as burglary and motor vehicle theft -- fell 1.6 percent.

In Pittsburgh, violent crime fell 2.8 percent and property crime was down 9.4 percent.

The city's homicide rate saw a sharp increase of 38 percent. There were 72 murders in Pittsburgh in 2008, up from 52 in 2007.

Yet that number has been decreasing this year. As of yesterday, there had been 22 killings in the city (including the three city police officers shot to death in Stanton Heights), down from 29 at the same point last year.

"I would like to think that some of the things we've been doing in recent years have been making inroads," Chief Donaldson said. "I think our relationship with the community is starting to pay some dividends."

Aggravated assaults were down from 1,678 to 1,609 last year, a fall of 4.1 percent. Robberies also fell 3.4 percent. The number of rapes jumped from 129 to 136.

The overall property crimes numbered 12,625, down from 13,933 the year before, a continued decline from the year before. Car thefts fell 18 percent, from 1,538 in 2007 to 1,259 last year.

This year's figures, from the Pittsburgh Police Bureau, show decreases in each of the six city police zones. The largest drop has occurred in Zone 2, based in the Hill District, with a 23 percent decrease. Zone 4, in Squirrel Hill, has seen a 15 percent decrease.

"I think it's fair to say that Pittsburgh is generally a low-crime place," said Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University.

Unlike many other major U.S. cities, Pittsburgh has a population base of large, extended families with deep roots here, a combination that lends itself to less crime.

Yet the statistics don't reflect the reality on the ground in some corners of the city, argues T. Rashad Byrdsong, president of the Community Empowerment Association, based in Homewood.

"We still see a proliferation of drugs and weapons in our community," he said. "A lot of crime has been concentrated in certain areas."

Some residents, he said, decline to call police when they hear gunshots or become the victim of a robbery.

The issues affecting Homewood are systemic -- a lack of jobs, strong schools and two-parent households.

Even with the fall in homicides this year, the victims tend to be young, black men who die from gunshot wounds.

Chief Donaldson said the killers also tend to be more brazen in their attacks. On Saturday afternoon, a man in a black SUV fired at a 14-year-old boy as he walked along Frankstown Avenue in Homewood, striking him in the abdomen. The boy survived.

The police bureau has been beefing up its outreach to young people in recent years, and Mr. Byrdsong's CEA is doing the same. Using a grant from the city, the organization plans to employ 35 youths in an urban gardening program this summer.

Despite the statistical decrease in crime, the Center for Victims of Violence and Crime in East Liberty is seeing a dramatic increase in its workload.

Stephanie Walsh, the center's director, said the number of crime victims seeking help increased more than 35 percent from March 2008 to March of this year. The increase came in all crime categories: assault, sexual assault, domestic violence and homicides.

"We've been extra, extra busy the last six to nine months," she said.

She said one factor behind the change likely was the financial crisis, contributing to stress in the home as families deal with falling incomes.

Also, she speculated that more people may be aware of the center's services.

Pittsburgh's homicide rate last year was a source of heated debate in the community. By the end of the year, the city homicide squad had investigated 79 homicides, but the number counted by the FBI dropped to 72 after some were reclassified as justifiable, including three police-involved shootings and several defense killings.

Still, even the lower number represented the highest total for the city since 1993, when there were 83 killings amid a crack cocaine epidemic and intense gang rivalries.

The murder number has since gone down and back up again, hitting a low of 32 in 1998 and then 68 in 2003.

In general, murder rates across the U.S. have fallen continuously in recent decades, with a 43 percent drop in both homicides and robberies from 1993 to 2000, Mr. Blumstein said.

"Since 2000, the national numbers have been quite low, numbers we haven't seen since the 1960s," he said.