Nipped From The Charlotte Section (Anchorage, Fairbanks: low crime, hotel, home)

[Barkingowl]

. and here is a list of the Top 25 METROS in the USA:

Safest 25:
1 Appleton, WI
2 Fond du Lac, WI
3 Bismarck, ND
4 State College, PA
5 Oshkosh-Neenah, WI
6 Bangor, ME
7 Harrisonburg, VA
8 Binghamton, NY
9 Wausau, WI
10 La Crosse, WI-MN
11 Columbus, IN
12 Edison, NJ M.D.
13 Sheboygan, WI
14 Nassau-Suffolk, NY M.D
15 Glens Falls, NY
16 Rockingham County, NH M.D.
17 Portland, ME
18 Fargo, ND-MN
19 Provo-Orem, UT
20 Grand Forks, ND-MN
21 Williamsport, PA
22 Poughkeepsie, NY
23 Cambridge-Newton, MA M.D.[/
24 Lewiston, ID-WA
25 Bloomington, IN

Most Dangerous 25:
1 Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI M.D.[/
2 Memphis, TN-MS-AR
3 Sumter, SC
4 Fairbanks, AK
5 New Orleans, LA
6 Miami-Dade County, FL M.D
7 Myrtle Beach, SC
8 Las Vegas-Paradise, NV
9 Victoria, TX
10 Florence, SC
11 Stockton, CA
12 Shreveport-Bossier City, LA
13 Pine Bluff, AR
14 Lafayette, LA
15 Jackson, MS
16 Saginaw, MI
17 Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ
18 Tucson, AZ
19 Los Angeles County, CA M.D
20 Baltimore-Towson, MD
21 Albuquerque, NM
22 Vineland, NJ
23 Montgomery, AL
24 Little Rock, AR
25 Charleston-North Charleston, SC

Is the Fairbanks metroplex really that dangerous?

[Arcticthaw]

Fairbanks is just a portion of a larger area, so again we are forced to ask the source of you material. Personally myself and everyone I know have never been accosted here.
The rub here is there are only 3 city patrol cars per shift on average. The troopers have 3 or 4 for an area the size of some states, we also get some fringe annoyances from the airport police and the university police. Mainly the latter two are either training a new person or out trying to $ up their dept with DUIs or other money making ventures. There does seem to be a DUI issue here but no one has found a solution for a safe and inexpensive (relativily) method home. Not like in some states where you can walk home from the corner bar after a couple of beers.

Want facts? City-Data does pretty good with that informaion, along with the city of Fairbanks web pages.

The back in the 70s when we were supposed to be having race riots downtown, turned out to be young Army guys fighting amongst themselves. Lots of now is related to some of them.

[Dusty Rhodes]

Not so sure about that list, seems fairly arbitrary to me, particularly the worst places. Well..... best places don't seem right to me either, seems to be skewed representation for colder climates, not that I dislike colder climates, just Williamsburg Va is a very nice town, really low crime rate and lots of jobs. Round Rock, Texas, while damn hot, is friendly, lots of work, low crime. Greensboro, NC, youth oriented, very active live theatre community, 2 universities, 3 colleges and a strong multi-faceted Community College, Charlotte, while too large for my taste has most professional sports, restaurants, theatres with a friendly, laid back atmosphere. Much the same for Durham, Raleigh is a hole, if it were not for Atlanta, it would have the worst traffic in the south. Most of S. Carolina deserves to be on the b list, if for no other reason than the proliferation of speed traps. The Myrtle Beach jail is like a really high priced hotel with no amenities that the locals like to cram past maximum capacity, more than half the inmates do not have beds or adequate floor space (experience speaking here, spent one night there, have not been back to myrtle beach since). Myrtle Beach should be rated higher on the list. The trouble with most lists of this ilk, more lists can be created disputing their veracity.

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by Barkingowl

Most Dangerous 25:
1 Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI M.D.[/
2 Memphis, TN-MS-AR
3 Sumter, SC
4 Fairbanks, AK

...

Is the Fairbanks metroplex really that dangerous?[/font]

Hey, that's pretty good! Means that in the last 30 years it has skipped down the list two notches.

The Third Judicial District based in Fairbanks used to have the second highest violent crime rate, per capita, of any place in the US. It was bested only by some particular ghetto slum on the east coast.

Now, of course that is only a small part of the story. In fact it not a dangerous place at all, and you (for example) would probably be about as safe from violent crime there as you could get anywhere in the country!

The Third Judicial District includes much of Western Alaska, as well as the Interior. It is a huge area with a relatively sparse population. Outside the urban Fairbanks area it is very very rare for any non-resident to be a victim of violence from a resident. On the other hand, the average hitch hiker on the Richardson Highway has served at least one prison term for a violent crime, so non- residents are not necessarily non-violent (but they only exist on the highway system too).

But what drives the per capita violent crime statistics up is that in most of bush Alaska we tend to drink in a different way than people in other places do. If we have booze, we drinks. We drinks until it is gone. One bottle? A small short party. 10 cases? A big drunken brawl that lasts for a good while! One offshoot of that is that at the "end" of the longer and more drunken brawls, folks are less in control... and often they tend to shoot at each other.

The people of bush Alaska a pretty good at hitting what they shoot at... so eventually the Troopers get involved at it becomes another statistic in the violent crime list.

If you don't drink with people here, you will never see any of the violence. Simple as that, and it is each individual's choice too!

[icarian]

Uh, NO, Fairbanks is no where like many of the other locales on that list (Washington, D.C.--oh yeah, didn't make it/Detroit/etc). Laughable imo.

Let me put up the bicycles and lock the vehicle doors when going off post into Fairbanks...gotta watch out for that "plethora" of violent crime...

[karfar]

Wow! My state WI got 6 in the top 25 safest places & none in the top 25 most dangerous. Now I can go & tell all the scaredy-cats living here in Milwaukee it's not all that bad. Whew!

[cobolt]

And you wonder by what standards are they judging. Safe/dangerous as compared to what? Where is the reference point?

I take these lists with less than a grain of salt. One of these "most dangerous lists" had Paris, Tx as a dangerous city. I about laughed out of my pants. (don't comment on that).

I do like Appleton, WI. Nice place, if you can find work.

[Ghost of the Desert]

that's a pretty strange list in general. Good job South Carolina, making four appearances on the list!

[Arcticthaw]

Ummm! Fairbanks is in the fourth judicial district, and Anchorage is in the third.

[Barkingowl]

Originally Posted by icarian

Laughable imo.

That's what I was thinking.