ST. LOUIS • Major crimes reported in the city fell 9.2 percent last year, reflecting the lowest crime totals since 1967, according to a police department report delivered Wednesday to the Board of Police Commissioners.

Is it possible to post such results from one year to the next as the nation — and city — continued to drag themselves out of a painful recession and high unemployment?

Richard Rosenfeld, former president of the American Society of Criminology and a professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, says yes.

Some of the decrease is simply a function of population decline, he said, "but most of it is not." St. Louis had more than 622,000 people in 1970, the census closest to 1967. The estimated population in 2009 was not quite 357,000.

Rosenfeld said crime has generally dropped or flattened the past couple years, with recent blips in Boston and New York.

"St. Louis is running with the herd," he said.

It's unclear why crime has not spiked with unemployment remaining high, he said, but he pointed out that inflation is at a historic low and open-air drug markets and crack cocaine aren't as prevalent as two decades ago. He said high levels of violence have not been associated with the rise in prescription drug abuse.

There were 33,782 of the most serious category of "Part 1" crimes reported in 2010 by the St. Louis police to the FBI for inclusion in national statistics . The department said that was the lowest since 30,826 in 1967. The category includes homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, vehicle theft and arson.

Reported violent crimes were down 15.6 percent, the department said, also the lowest year since 1967. Reported property crimes were said to be down 7.6 percent.

In a presentation to the police board, Chief Dan Isom applauded his department for good work but said homicide and burglary remain troubling areas. The department counted 144 murders last year, up one from the 143 in 2009. Burglaries were down slightly, to 6,705 in 2010 from 6,834 the year before.

The good news was met by some skepticism.

"I don't believe that at all," said the Rev. Roosevelt Chew, 47, a pastor who also works at Montgomery Laundromat in Old North St. Louis, a business that was robbed in December. He told a reporter, "My car has been broken into twice in the same year. Several cars have been stolen in the area."

Officials said vehicle break-ins were the most persistent crime.

Clearance rates — the percentage of crimes solved — were also a little better in 2010, police said: 18.1 percent of reported crimes were cleared in 2010, compared to 17.5 percent in 2009. For crimes against persons, it was 45.9 percent in 2010, up from 43.2 percent in 2009. Among property crimes, 11.9 percent were cleared, compared to 11.2 the year before.

Looking at the historic numbers, Lt. Col. Alfred Atkins told the board that annual homicides exceeded 250 in the early 1970s, '80s and '90s, yet fell to as few as 74 in 2003.

"If you believe in cyclical, we should be prepared for what's coming," he warned.

In his report, Atkins said two-thirds of the 144 homicide victims in 2010 were African-American males ages 17 to 39. Half were from north St. Louis; 71 percent had prior felony arrests; 60 percent had drugs or alcohol in their systems; and 15 percent were believed to be affiliated with gangs.

"They are primarily young black males who are both the victims and the suspects," Isom said in an interview. "The root causes are education, unemployment and poverty."

He said the department does a lot of community outreach but emphasized, "We are police, though. We are not educators."