New Orleans named most crime-ridden US city

by Rachel Nixon | November 24, 2008 at 11:07 am

4210 views | 39 Recommendations | 12 comments

The city of New Orleans has the highest level of crime in the US, according to an annual ranking of crime rates in American cities.

The report from CQ Press draws on data from the FBI on murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, and car theft.

The CQ Press "City Crime Rankings" list named New Orleans its most crime-ridden city based on a reported 19,000-plus incidences of six major crimes -- including 209 murder cases -- in 2007.

The Gulf Coast city of about 250,000, still grappling with the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, was followed in the rankings by Camden, New Jersey; Detroit, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; and Oakland, California.

Ramapo in New York has the honour of being the city with the lowest crime rate. In 2007 there were just 688 reported crimes and no homicides.

The city crime report has attracted controversy in previous years:

The FBI, which compiles its own Uniform Crime Report statistics, warns that ranking cities against each other can produce "simplistic and/or incomplete analyses," and the American Society of Criminology called last year's CQ report "an irresponsible misuse of the data."

The study's publishers said they dropped previous characterizations of "safest" and "most dangerous" from this year's study, calling those qualities "perceptions of the individuals who live in these communities." But they defended the comparisons as a valuable tool for researchers and the public.

"The book provides the means by which individuals can compare local communities to other similar communities based on comparison to the national level of reported crime as well as crime rates per 100,000 of individual types of reported crime, violent and property crime categories, and overall," the company says in a statement accompanying the data.

This year the report has been criticised by American mayors:

The U.S. Conference of Mayors today sharply criticized the latest release of city-by-city crime rankings by CQ Press as "misleading and a disservice to the public."

"These rankings represent a misuse of FBI data," said Rochester, N.Y. Mayor Robert J. Duffy, a former police chief and Chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Criminal and Social Justice Committee. "The rankings have no real value -- they are misleading and completely out of context. You cannot grab raw data in a simplistic fashion and draw meaningful conclusions, yet that is exactly what this publication is doing. They do real harm to the reputations and economies of our cities. As we did last year, we are urging media outlets, which have long given these rankings broad coverage, to reconsider their approach and avoid biasing their audiences against our cities."

Do you agree with the report's findings? Is your city on the list? What is your perception of crime in your city?

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Albert Milliron

at 14:34 on November 24th, 2008

What I see in America is that the more Liberal the government, the more crime. Liberals love regulation of guns and other means of protecting oneself thus criminals now that they have easy targets when committing a crime. Cities that have right to carry laws. etc. have lower crime rates compared objectively with cities that don't. Police cannot hope to provide full protection of all the citizens, especially during a disaster. Law abiding citizens who have a right to carry a weapon keep criminals in check. They have to ask themselves, "is this guy/girl carrying protection". Whatever ones political view, the numbers just don't lie. In a perfect world we would have no weapons... My experience is that the world is much less then perfect.

Good story with lots of good information. BTW Ramapo, NY was the city in 2001 whose Walmart Refused to stop selling firearms to law abiding citizens. I recommend, "Can Gun Control Reduce Crime" as a good article on this issue

Rhonda J Mangus

at 14:39 on November 24th, 2008

Thank you for this story, Rachel. Interesting stats given that New Orleans has a Crime Camera Program that is seemingly failing. The title of today's story at this link is "Failure of crime cameras angers slain musician's family."

Albert Milliron

at 03:40 on November 25th, 2008

Rhonda, Cameras haven't seem to have done well. Seems like criminals like to get photographed during their crimes. One only has to look to YouTube to see that criminals even tape their own crimes for all to see. Camera's are a waste of money when they are used to eliminate a human on a beat. Police in plain view works much better then a camera any day. In SC our police bring home their cars at night. It is amazing that crime is much lower on my street because the Police Officer across the street parks her police car in her drive way.

Rhonda J Mangus

at 15:07 on November 26th, 2008

I would agree that some criminals like to get photographed during their crimes; this implies that some do not. But, camera's that are known not to be operating certainly won't deter crime by any stretch. Too, New Orleans has more problems than non-operational crime cameras. The "contract" for the crime camera program has evidently been exposed too.

Rhonda J Mangus

at 15:12 on November 26th, 2008

Here's a link to one story on New Orleans crime camera program contract exposed.

Uwe Paschen

at 19:16 on November 24th, 2008

Some how this should not be coming as a surprise, after what this area went through and how its Federal government failed to provide adequate help afterwards.

sambucat

at 00:48 on November 25th, 2008

it had a high murder rate before that

Albert Milliron

at 03:36 on November 25th, 2008

Paschen, In America, the first line of defense for emergencies is Local, state, then Federal. It bothers me that FEMA is condemned when the city had an outdated Emergency Action Plan. If you noticed the last Hurricane all agencies worked in unison to evacuate and provide assistance to New Orleans. The problem during Katrina was inter-agency communication problems . The Governor did not call for a Mandatory evacuation and held off federal agencies until they were in deep Kim chi. So lets make sure blames is passed all the way down the chain of command.

joeylowe

at 17:57 on November 25th, 2008

Take home police cars are not used to reduce crime. Instead, they are a cost savings measure by the agency that employees the officer. I know because I was one. That aside for a moment, New Orleans has always had a crime rate. Maybe not number one, but certainly on the list. Speaking of lists, there are many ways to manipulate lists to get the results you want. Bottom line is that most crimes are economic based, even the domestic ones. Somehow it always comes back to the lack of money.

Is there an "end-all" solution? Probably not! Is there a happy medium? Maybe, but may not be cost effective.

NJCommentator (not verified)

at 10:07 on December 1st, 2008

Let us get rid of all standardized measurement statistics since we don't agree with the results. Hey, why even have these statistical instruments at all; it is judgemental and this is not good for our country.

We should lead by example by eliminating any judgemental instruments so that everybody is equal and all types of competition could be eliminated. Why measure growth because it then compares to those that don't grow.

As a matter of my opinion, I disagree with my own commnets because I am passing judgement on wheather to have or not have instruments of comparisons. Oops, here I go again comparing myself to unrealistic standards. Oops, I did it again. So let me stop for now.

Bmd0005 (not verified)

at 14:00 on December 1st, 2008

Not suprising at all. New Orleans had the highest murder rate of all time back in 1994. And that record still stands. 85.5 per 100,000. No city has ever come close. It was ranked the 8th most dangerous city in the entire world at that time. Only 3rd world cities like Columbia and cities in Africa with civil wars were ranked higher. D.C. did in the early 90's at around 70 per 100,000. For comparison, NYC has about 7 per 100,000. Detroit is about 40 per 100,000. New Orleans is normally around 50 per 100,000.. and since Katrina it's peaked back up to near early 90's numbers of 60 per 100,000, and even estimated by a professor from Tulane University to be at 95 per 100,000 in 2006.

And I should know how it is.. I lived there. I actually just came back from there yesterday for thanksgiving. The city is just so poor and so run down. Even the suburbs on the westbank are a dump. The school system is one of the worst in the country.. it's just animals down there with no brains and no logic. And the corrupt police do not help. The thugs there have no sense of concequence. When many of them fled to Houston after Katrina, the Houston police were shocked at how they had no sense of concequence and didn't care at all. Didn't talk. Didn't cooperate. Were so confident that they would be back on the streets.