Dallas ranking in violent crime (Houston, Arlington: low crime, home, neighborhoods)

[aceplace]

This list is just for Dallas city, not the suburbs, but it says a lot about Dallas' hyper-exaggerated reputation for violent crime.

I went to the FBI website and pulled some numbers for violent crimes in various municipalities. I dvided crimes by population to get violent crimes per thousand. Dallas is not so bad.

Take a look"

1 Flint MI 25.97
2 St Louis MO 24.81
3 Detroit MI 24.22
4 Memphis TN 19.88
5 Orlando FL 19.83
6 Oakland CA 18.96
7 Little Rock AR 17.81
8 Baltimore MD 16.96
9 Philadelphia PA 15.62
10 Atlanta GA 15.54
11 Cleveland OH 15.47
12 Nashville TN 15.27
13 Miami FL 15.09
14 Springfield MA 14.82
15 St Petersburg FL 14.82
16 Stockton CA 14.81
17 Washington DC 14.48
18 Kansas City MO 14.44
19 Buffalo NY 14.11
20 Baton Rouge LA 14.03
21 Birmingham AL 13.59
22 Boston MA 13.39
23 Milwaukee WI 13.25
24 Pompano Beach FL 12.90
25 Tulsa OK 12.48
26 Chattanooga TN 12.29
27 Cincinatti OH 12.18
28 Sacramento CA 12.06
29 Dallas TX 12.06

The table I pulled is at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/06prelim/excels/2006table4.xls (broken link)

One reason that Orlando, Florida has such high numbers is that it ignores the millions of people who visit. Its rate is based on the number of people who live in Orlando, and ignores the number who visit.

Las Vegas is not on the list. I guess that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

[lh_newbie]

Interesting info - thanks Aceplace.

I have a tendency to think that as more people become residents of Dallas proper increases, the per capita crime rate will drop a little bit. Today, we have a lot of people that come here to work and go home ourside the city limits. This means any crime that happens to a non-citizen increases the per capita crime rate.

[socketz]

Little Rock and Tulsa seem out of place on that list.

I frequent those spots and they have a completely different feel from Dallas.

I also thought DC would be higher.

[Synopsis]

Originally Posted by socketz

Little Rock and Tulsa seem out of place on that list.

I frequent those spots and they have a completely different feel from Dallas.

I also thought DC would be higher.

I'm from Oklahoma, and have lived in Tulsa (love the city). Tulsa's crime situation is particularly bad on the North side, which makes the city overall appear to have a bad crime problem. Having said that, they do have a serious problem on the North side that needs to be rectified and it's a blight on that city for allowing it to continue. Little Rock is much smaller than even Tulsa and I don't understand why they have such a crime rate.

I believe in alot of these crime figures in many instances (outside of murder and violent crimes) could be an anomaly of sorts. What if, for instance, in a city like Tulsa (or even Dallas for that matter) more people report burglary because when these things happen, they are more of a major incident to these people. In some areas, crimes are committed and people fail to report them because they are almost everyday occurrences. I just have a difficult time understanding the whole crime reporting versus crimes committed thing when it comes to crimes other than violent ones.

[socketz]

Is burglary in there with the violent crimes ? Violent crime I think Murder, rape, robbery, etc. burglary, I think of some kids sneaking in a garage you left open and stealing your skillsaw.

[Spree]

>> burglary, I think of some kids sneaking in a garage you left open and stealing your skillsaw. <<

or something like this I found on a police blotter:

>>Vandals caused $700 worth of property damage to a home in the 3700 block of Southwestern Boulevard using eggs, Hershey’s syrup, Cheese Whiz, canned dog food, and shoe polish.<<

[momof2dfw]

And to put it all in perspective like we have all said before, if you don't put yourself in certain situations your less likely to be involved in something bad. Yet just this morning I read where in two seperate cases a total of 5 young teens were killed.

The first was down in the Houston area. Four young teens ages 12-17 were killed overnight in the Houston area when the driver in a STOLEN Jeep Cherokee was going fast in a dark area and hit a train killing the FOUR occupants in the back. First off the car was STOLEN and did not belong to even any relatives of those involved. Second it was like FOUR IN THE MORNING when it happened. Thirdly, FOUR occupants in the backseat that holds only THREE. Hmmmm. As the mother of a 12 year old......... she BETTER not be out at that time of night. This is one of those stories we are going to be discussing.

The second one was in Arlington. A 14 year old girl was in the street at 1 am w/ a group of other youths when someone in the group shot her in the shoulder and she died from the gunshot wound. I know it is summer and the kids like staying up a bit later and all and want to hang out with their friends but honestly: WHY DOES A KID THAT YOUNG NEED TO BE OUT ON THE STREETS AT 1 IN THE MORNING? Again, another story to discuss w/ my own child.

While all of these are going to add to the numbers of thefts, murders, etc what are the chances of the normal everyday citizen being involved in such?

[kaykay]

Well, I can tell you from personal experience if you live in the "wrong" part of town, you can certainly just be living a quiet life, minding your own business and experience crime violent and otherwise. When we lived in southeast Dallas (Pleasant Grove) it was quite prevalent.

[lh_newbie]

Kaykay - I agree with what you're saying.

If someone lives in a neighborhood that has a lot of crime happening, you are certainly more likely to be directly affected by said crime.

If that person moves to a neighborhood that has a low crime rate, they are proportionately less likely to be affected by a crime.

I think the formula is pretty basic... take your neighborhood crime rate and add or subtract your "street smarts" and avoidance of situations and you have your overall likelihood of being involved. There are things we can all do to decrease the odd we will be affected.

As an example, my wife lived near Mockingbird/Central before we got married. There were lots of smash and grabs in the neighborhood. But let's compare our TWO vehicles with her neighbor's one. We never left anything in plain sight. We didn't get our windows knocked out. Her neighbor left tools in plain sight all the time, and he had 3 incidents. Pretty simple if you ask me.

[aceplace]

I have a tendency to think that as more people become residents of Dallas proper increases, the per capita crime rate will drop a little bit. Today, we have a lot of people that come here to work and go home ourside the city limits. This means any crime that happens to a non-citizen increases the per capita crime rate.

That's definitely a factor. Dallas is not a self-contained universe, but just a part of a large metro. The count of commuters and visitors should be added to the resident population to calculate an accurate rate.

Is burglary in there with the violent crimes?

I don't think so.

Tulsa's crime situation is particularly bad on the North side, which makes the city overall appear to have a bad crime problem.

True... crime is not uniformly spread over the entire city like peanut butter on a piece of bread... it is concentrated in just a few bad neighborhoods. A city could have a higher crime rate and still be safer overall outside of the high crime ghettos.

I just have a difficult time understanding the whole crime reporting versus crimes committed thing when it comes to crimes other than violent ones.

That's why these numbers are basically useless. They are not a count of crimes but of reports. And different percentages of crimes are reported from one city to the next.

Since I think these numbers are useless, you may wonder why I took the time to post them. I did it to dispell an urban myth. For years, people in Dallas have been told that their city is the most dangerous place in America, that Dallas is number one in crime...based upon its crime rate. People may continue to believe that myth, but the numbers don't support it.

The on-line encyclopedia called Wikipedia is flagrantly guilty of this. Apparently some Houston people have posted some statements in the Dallas article that perpetuates this myth. I copied the FBI numbers into the article in an attempt to refute this. And I thought that people in this forum would like to see them.