WASHINGTON - The number of people who were victims of all violent crimes except murder fell by 9 percent in 2001, sending the crime rate to its lowest level since it was first tracked in 1973, the government reported Sunday.

The decline was because of a record low number of reported assaults, the most common form of violent crime.

The drop is detailed in the 2001 National Crime Victimization Survey, which is based on interviews with victims and does not include murder. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report was obtained Sunday by the Associated Press in advance of its release this week.

Figures from another FBI report -- gleaned from more than 17,000 city, county and state law enforcement agencies and released in June -- reflected an increase in murders of 3.1 percent in 2001.

Since 1993, the violent crime rate has decreased by almost 50 percent.

The report says between 2000 and 2001, the number of people who reported they were victims of violent crime fell from about 28 per 1,000 to about 25 per 1,000, a 10 percent drop. The number of people reporting violent crimes fell from 6,323,000 in 2000 to 5,744,000 in 2001.

About half of the violent crimes reported in the survey were reported to police.

The effect of tougher sentencing laws can best be seen in the drop in the rate at which people in the United States are assaulted, said Bruce Fenmore, a criminal statistician at the Institute for Crime and Punishment, a Chicago-based think tank.

"There is overwhelming evidence that people who commit assaults do it as a general course of their affairs," Fenmore said. "Putting those people behind bars drops the rate."

The rate at which criminals used guns to accomplish their crimes held steady, about 26 percent.

Rape fell 8 percent, and sexual assaults -- which include verbal threats and fondling -- fell 20 percent. About half the women who reported rapes said the perpetrator was a friend or acquaintance. The rate at which women reported rape to the police fell 19 percent in 2001.

The overall property crime rate fell 6 percent between 2000 and 2001 because of a 6.3 percent decrease in theft and a 9.7 percent decrease in household burglaries.

The car theft rate was up 7 percent, reflecting a jump from 937,000 car thefts in 2000 to 1,009,000 in 2001.

Crime fell in each of the regions of the United States but showed the most dramatic decline, 19.7 percent, in the Midwest.