Crime Rate Des Moines (Cedar Rapids, Davenport: low crime, neighborhoods, place to live)
Des MoinesDallas, Guthrie, Madison, Polk, and Warren Counties
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Can anyone give me an opinion as to what the crime is like in Des Moines..I've been researching; city data says its has a low crime rate for a city but when I checked out Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
That site gave some bad numbers there...I mean it is on par with Trenton New Jersey. Nothing to be proud of to say the least..So whats everyone opinion..is it bad there..is it nice...Not looking to move into the city but checking out surrounding areas...One thing I dont want is a high crime area or an area around me that has a higher amount of crime....From my experiences high crime rates slowly but surley drift into good neighborhoods..seen it way too many times...
Des Moines has NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING on many towns in New Jersey (Examples: Camden/Atlantic City). I take crime stats from the FBI with a grain of salt because they can be misinterpreted in various ways by the media and novices.
If memory serves me correctly, Des Moines had just 5 murders a few years ago. 5 murders in a city of 200,000 is pretty good by any standards. I have relatives in the so-called "rough" areas (North DM), and even those areas are very livable in comparison to cities of similar size. I have read that Des Moines' worst years were in the late 1970s when they were having something like 40 homicides a year, but I will have to re-check that for you. (Or you can Google it yourself...).
Status:
"We might finally be thawing out!"
(set 11 days ago)
Location: Des Moines, IA
2,563 posts, read 1,040,456 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Squeaky2012
Des Moines has NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING on many towns in New Jersey (Examples: Camden/Atlantic City). I take crime stats from the FBI with a grain of salt because they can be misinterpreted in various ways by the media and novices.
If memory serves me correctly, Des Moines had just 5 murders a few years ago. 5 murders in a city of 200,000 is pretty good by any standards. I have relatives in the so-called "rough" areas (North DM), and even those areas are very livable in comparison to cities of similar size. I have read that Des Moines' worst years were in the late 1970s when they were having something like 40 homicides a year, but I will have to re-check that for you. (Or you can Google it yourself...).
Were those 5 murders in the city proper or was that going by metro area? If so, then you can say 5 murders in a metro of nearly 500,000 is really good!
A lot of neighborhoods in DM-proper are very safe. I feel just fine walking down my street alone after dark. Some nighborhoods, not so much, but as a whole I think DM is a pretty safe place to live compared to other places in the US.
Des Moines has NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING on many towns in New Jersey (Examples: Camden/Atlantic City). I take crime stats from the FBI with a grain of salt because they can be misinterpreted in various ways by the media and novices.
If memory serves me correctly, Des Moines had just 5 murders a few years ago. 5 murders in a city of 200,000 is pretty good by any standards. I have relatives in the so-called "rough" areas (North DM), and even those areas are very livable in comparison to cities of similar size. I have read that Des Moines' worst years were in the late 1970s when they were having something like 40 homicides a year, but I will have to re-check that for you. (Or you can Google it yourself...).
I believe Des Moines actually topped out in the mid 1990's with ~20 murders. In the 70's the entire state only had between 50 and 65 murders a year, and with Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Sioux City, etc in there I don't see how Des Moines could have accounted for 70%-80% of those by itself.
It was actually just 5 murders for the entire metro area back a few years ago. A homicide rate of 1.0/100,000.
I certainly wouldn't compare with Trenton, New Jersey:
Homicide:
Des Moines: 3.1/100,000
Trenton: 36.2/100,000
Trenton is 1,167% higher
Robbery:
Des Moines: 150.7/100,000
Trenton: 940.8/100,000
Trenton is 624% higher
Aggravated Assault:
Des Moines: 418.8/100,000
Trenton: 769.0/100,000
Trenton is 184% higher
Total Violent Crime:
Des Moines: 629/100,000
Trenton: 1,772/100,000
Trenton is 282% higher
Even Little Rock is much higher than Des Moines, and it's a similar sized city in a similar sized metro:
Homicide:
Des Moines: 3.1/100,000
Little Rock: 22.6/100,000
Robbery:
Des Moines: 150.7/100,000
Little Rock: 462.7/100,000
Aggravated Assault:
Des Moines: 418.8/100,000
Trenton: 1,224.6/100,000
Total Violent Crime:
Des Moines: 629/100,000
Trenton: 1,772/100,000
Des Moines is much more comparable with Omaha. Omaha has a homicide rate over twice as high, but all other categories are almost the same as Des Moines.
I believe Des Moines actually topped out in the mid 1990's with ~20 murders. In the 70's the entire state only had between 50 and 65 murders a year, and with Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Sioux City, etc in there I don't see how Des Moines could have accounted for 70%-80% of those by itself.
It was actually just 5 murders for the entire metro area back a few years ago. A homicide rate of 1.0/100,000.
I certainly wouldn't compare with Trenton, New Jersey:
Homicide:
Des Moines: 3.1/100,000
Trenton: 36.2/100,000
Trenton is 1,167% higher
Robbery:
Des Moines: 150.7/100,000
Trenton: 940.8/100,000
Trenton is 624% higher
Aggravated Assault:
Des Moines: 418.8/100,000
Trenton: 769.0/100,000
Trenton is 184% higher
Total Violent Crime:
Des Moines: 629/100,000
Trenton: 1,772/100,000
Trenton is 282% higher
Even Little Rock is much higher than Des Moines, and it's a similar sized city in a similar sized metro:
Homicide:
Des Moines: 3.1/100,000
Little Rock: 22.6/100,000
Robbery:
Des Moines: 150.7/100,000
Little Rock: 462.7/100,000
Aggravated Assault:
Des Moines: 418.8/100,000
Trenton: 1,224.6/100,000
Total Violent Crime:
Des Moines: 629/100,000
Trenton: 1,772/100,000
Des Moines is much more comparable with Omaha. Omaha has a homicide rate over twice as high, but all other categories are almost the same as Des Moines.
Well, I read about Des Moines' high homicide rate in a few newspapers (I think the DM Register spoke of it) and academic articles. I was quite surprised myself and had to double check, because I just couldn't believe there were that many homicides in the city. In fact, I think I'm going to check one last time...lol.
Well, I read about Des Moines' high homicide rate in a few newspapers (I think the DM Register spoke of it) and academic articles. I was quite surprised myself and had to double check, because I just couldn't believe there were that many homicides in the city. In fact, I think I'm going to check one last time...lol.
HIGH homicide rates? God no. The worst was back in the mid 90's it was around 10/100,000 - which was the national average. It's normally between 3 and 6 or so per 100,000. Most cities would kill for a rate of around 3/100,000!
HIGH homicide rates? God no. The worst was back in the mid 90's it was around 10/100,000 - which was the national average. It's normally between 3 and 6 or so per 100,000. Most cities would kill for a rate of around 3/100,000!
haha, i just got the irony of that statement.
Yeah, I know that DM has a low homicide rate, (much like Iowa) but I remember reading a few articles which stated that Des Moines had a few couple of years during the 1970s that were outside of the norm (for lack of a better term).
In fact, one of the former coroners for the county was calling it "Little Detroit", which made me damn near fall out of my seat laughing, and so I checked out the years between 1976-1979 for homicides in one of those demographic books that States like to print, and it stated that Des Moines was having roughly 30 homicides per year during that period.
Now, perhaps they could have mistyped information, but I remember reading that and thinking that it couldn't be true. But then again, maybe it was.
Well, I couldn't find the stats, so I cannot vouch for the numbers that I stated. in any event, to the OP, crime is very low in Des Moines (overall). I wouldn't worry too much about victimization, and would use typical precautions like you normally would.
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