Friday, November 26, 2010

St. Louis earns leading position as America's most dangerous city

The CQ Press "Most Hazardous Cities" listing angers places across the country annually. Probably the most recent rankings put St. Louis on leading, displacing the previous "winner" Camden, N.J. to 2nd fiddle. Critics call the CQ most dangerous cities listing “irresponsible,” but CQ Press defends the rankings as a way for communities to hold civic leaders accountable.

The most dangerous cities in America

St. Louis was after Camden on the CQ biggest risk places listing. Now the 2009 one shows St. Louis at the top. Detroit, Mich., was number three, followed by neighboring Flint. Oakland, Calif., rounds out the top five. Cities in the U.S. are compared based on violent crimes by CQ Press. Auto theft, burglary, aggravated assault, murder, rape and robbery are all included in this list. St. Louis was rated on leading within the 2009 survey. This is because per 100,000 individuals, St. Louis had 2,070.1 chaotic crimes. 429.4 is the average throughout the nation. Camden finished seven points behind St. Louis and 18 points ahead of Detroit.

Chaotic crime statistics criticized

Probably the most hazardous places are rated by CQ Press. FBI criminal offense data has to be used for this. The Associated Press accounts that city officials and some criminologists question the methodology of the survey. Putting out probably the most dangerous cities listing is not very responsible. This is the opinion of the St. Louis Police Department accounts the AP. Greg Scarbro, unit chief of the FBI’s Uniform Criminal offense Reporting Program, told AP the FBI discourages using its crime data for such rankings. A spokesman for the mayor’s office in St. Louis said crime has gone down each year since 2007. The CQ issued a "flawed" report that was only released "for the sake of making a buck" based on Camden Mayor Dana Redd who told this to the Philadelphia Daily News.

CQ most secure places list

A border city that has a ton of Mexican drug violence right next to it, El Paso, TX, was named by CQ press as the safest area within the U.S. Honolulu was second safest and New York Area was third. This is the first time that El Paso made first on the survey. It had reached second and 3rd on the CQ safest places report before though.

Articles cited

Associated Press

google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hjbTudvgLq379jbYawS7w_WOFUjA?docId=22c9981f4ca34807ba7ac8dc07726067

Philadelphia Daily News

philly.com/dailynews/local/20101122_Camden_loses_crime_title.html

El Paso Times

elpasotimes.com/ci_16670537?source=most_viewed



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