New U.S. city named most dangerous

Slimdust

DETROIT - In another blow to the Motor City's tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the nation's most dangerous city, according to a private research group's controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics.

The study drew harsh criticism even before it came out. The American Society of Criminology launched a pre-emptive strike Friday, issuing a statement attacking it as "an irresponsible misuse" of crime data.

The 14th annual "City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America" was published by CQ Press, a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc. It is based on the FBI's Sept. 24 crime statistics report.

The report looked at 378 cities with at least 75,000 people based on per-capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft. Each crime category was considered separately and weighted based on its seriousness, CQ Press said.

Last year's crime leader, St. Louis, fell to No. 2. Another Michigan city, Flint, ranked third, followed by Oakland Calif.; Camden, N.J.; Birmingham, Ala.; North Charleston, S.C.; Memphis, Tenn.; Richmond, Calif.; and Cleveland.

The study ranked Mission Viejo, Calif., as the safest U.S. city, followed by Clarkstown, N.Y.; Brick Township, N.J.; Amherst, N.Y.; and Sugar Land, Texas.

CQ Press spokesman Ben Krasney said details of the weighting system were proprietary. It was compiled by Kathleen O'Leary Morgan and Scott Morgan, whose Morgan Quitno Press published it until its acquisition by CQ Press.

The study assigns a crime score to each city, with zero representing the national average. Detroit got a score of 407, while St. Louis followed at 406. The score for Mission Viejo, in affluent Orange County, was minus 82.

Detroit was pegged the nation's murder capital in the 1980s and has lost nearly 1 million people since 1950, according to the Census Bureau. Downtown sports stadiums and corporate headquarters — along with the redevelopment of the riverfront of this city of 919,000 — have slowed but not reversed the decline. Officials have said crime reports don't help.

Detroit police officials released a statement Sunday night disputing the report, saying it fails to put crime information into proper context.

"Every year this organization sends out a press release with big, bold lettering that labels a certain city as Most Dangerous, USA," Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings said in the release.

"It really makes you wonder if the organization is truly concerned with evaluating crime or increasing their profit," said Bully-Cummings, who noted the complete report is available only by purchase. "With crime experts across the country routinely denouncing the findings, I believe the answer is clear."

The mayor of 30th-ranked Rochester, N.Y. — an ex-police chief himself — said the study's authors should consider the harm that the report causes.

"What I take exception to is the use of these statistics and the damage they inflict on a number of these cities," said Mayor Robert Duffy, chairman of the Criminal and Social Justice Committee for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The rankings "do groundless harm to many communities," said Michael Tonry, president of the American Society of Criminology.

"They also work against a key goal of our society, which is a better understanding of crime-related issues by both scientists and the public," Tonry said.

Critics also complain that numbers don't tell the whole story because of differences among cities.

"You're not comparing apples and oranges; you're comparing watermelons and grapes," said Rob Casey, who heads the FBI section that puts out the Uniform Crime Report that provides the data for the Quitno report.

The FBI posted a statement on its Web site criticizing such use of its statistics.

"These rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region," the FBI said. "Consequently, they lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents."

Doug Goldenberg-Hart, acquisitions editor at CQ Press, said that the rankings are imperfect, but that the numbers are straightforward. Cities at the top of the list would not be there unless they ranked poorly in all six crime categories, he said.

"The idea that people oppose it, it's kind of blaming the messenger," Goldenberg-Hart said. "It's not coming to terms with the idea that crime is a persistent problem in our society."

The report "helps concerned Americans learn how their communities fare in the fight against crime," CQ Press said in a statement. "The first step in making our cities and states safer is to understand the true magnitude of their crime problems. This will only be achieved through straightforward data that all of us can use and understand."

The study excluded Chicago, Minneapolis, and other Illinois and Minnesota cities because of incomplete data.



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Necro

God bless Detriot...

Dr. Giganto

My girlfriend lives in the 4th-most dangerous city in America...woo hoo!!!

Necro

Chicago was so badass they couldnt even get data...

Dakstang

WC's Resident Redneck

A city near where I live in has earned the nick name "Little Detroit" because all the drug trafficing coming from Detroit and the rise in crime because of it.

Joseph T. Cool

Administrator & WC HOF'er

Oakland being on this list is no shock to me.

It was and is one of the worst cities in California.

Inogenius

I had actually heard that living in Detroit was more dangerous than living in Baghdad. Nice to see Cleveland up there. Another great thing to go along with our fattest & the poorest city in the nation. Good job guys!

On a side note, the town over to mine, Painesville City, apparently as just as high of crime per person ratio as Cleveland.

Dr. Giganto

Cleveland also apparently has swarms of bugs that swoop down on a regular basis

Jayman

Super Moderator

Ah yes, the good old town of Detroit. And if I took an hour drive north (rather than south towards Detroit) I would reach the #3 city on the list, Flint.

It's just sad because both towns were once booming places for the state. I've been told stories about how beautiful Detroit once was. The casino's being put in place are helping, but they still have a long way to go. They need to drive a tractor with a wrecking ball on it right down Woodward Avenue and just swing the thing in every direction.

Flint also was the capital of the automotive industry, and the home of Buick. Nowadays, parts of the town I drive through make me want to lock my doors and speed right through. Ugh. When I was working in Flint last year, I was told by a coworker that if I ever got transferred to second shift, I needed to seriously consider buying a gun to carry with me in the parking lot.