Posted by
Ed Lilly on Monday, November 19, 2007 9:26:19 AM
From the
AP story on Google News:
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.
I have to conclude from the Feds wasting 4 years dorking around investigating whether a steroid-taking baseball player lied about whether he knew he was taking steroids that crime in Northern California has been completely eradicated for some time now. So there's no way Oakland can be on this list. Simliarly, it is impossible for the only city in California to be in the "safest" group to be located way down south of LA.
The only possible explanation is that the crime statistics include non-federal jurisdiction crimes so that the FBI and U.S. District Attorneys wouldn't actually be involved, they're just reporting general numbers.