Okay...we've got to clean up the crime in Houston. Enuff z Nuff!!!

[Topaz]

I was looking at this page about Los Angeles from City Data. Then the table labeled, "Crime in Los Angeles by Year." Then the last column for 2007, then the yellow highlighted rows as those are the numbers per 100,000 people.

And then the same for Houston here. Table labeled, "Crime in Houston by Year." Last column for 2007. Yellow highlighted row with numbers per 100,000 people.

This is crime reported. If people are too scared to report the crime because they think some gang member will come murder everyone in their family if they talk to the police, those numbers won't be included.

[houstoner]

You can't compare crime statistics across cities, simply because they don't tell the whole story. As Topaz suggested, Houston could have more crime because people here have more trust in their police department so crime is reported more often. You also have to take into account that Houston is 600 square miles. Vast swaths of the city are safe, and the areas that aren't you naturally learn to avoid. It's not like you're going to walk down the street in the Montrose during the day and become victim of a drive-by. Use common sense, don't fraternize with felons, and you'll be fine.

From CJIS Divison Uniform Crime Reporting - Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics (http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/ucrstat.htm - broken link)

Pitfalls of Ranking

UCR data are sometimes used to compile rankings of individual jurisdictions and institutions of higher learning. These crude and/or incomplete analyses have often created misleading perceptions which adversely affect geographic entities and their residents. For this reason, the FBI has a longstanding policy against ranking cities, counties, states, and universities/colleges on the basis of crime data alone. Despite repeated warnings against these practices, this position continues to be challenged and misunderstood by crime data users.

Locales should not be ranked because there are many factors that cause the nature and type of crime to vary from place to place. UCR statistics include only jurisdictional population figures along with reported crime, clearance, or arrest data. Rankings ignore the uniqueness of each locale. All jurisdictions are affected to some degree by:

* population density and degree of urbanization of the locality and its surrounding area;
* variations in composition of the population;
* the number of residents versus the "policing population," i.e., residents plus daily commuters, transients, tourists, shoppers, etc.;
* economic conditions;
* modes of transportation and highway systems;
* cultural conditions;
* family conditions with respect to divorce and family cohesiveness;
* climate;
* effective strength of law enforcement agencies;
* administrative and investigative emphases of law enforcement;
* policies of other components of the criminal justice system, i.e., prosecutorial, judicial, correctional, and probational.

[sheri257]

Originally Posted by Mom2Feebs

There is just no way L.A. has less crime than Houston. That's just a pantload of dookie.

Yes, there is a way. California has a three strikes law, Texas doesn't. Once a criminal commits three felonies in California, they're locked up for much longer periods of time. Locked up criminals don't commit crimes.

When confronted with high crime rates, people always argue about the stats so ... let's look at another set of stats ... the FBI's violent crime stats to be specific.

Table 6 - Crime in the United States 2007 (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_06.html#h - broken link)

How many violent crimes per 100,000 people does Houston have? 1132.

LA? 718.

The downside of this lower crime rate is that it costs California a fortune, which is why the state is having such bad budget problems right now. Texas isn't having those budget problems but, the trade off is higher crime.

[sheri257]

Originally Posted by houstoner

You can't compare crime statistics across cities, simply because they don't tell the whole story. As Topaz suggested, Houston could have more crime because people here have more trust in their police department so crime is reported more often.

Ok well ... if you guys want to ignore the problem and pretend crime isn't an issue, obviously that's your perogative but ... seems to me like the OP felt like something needed to be done.

I don't think it's any coincidence that Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, the three major cities in Texas, are frequently listed in the top five worst crime areas of the country.

[Topaz]

Originally Posted by houstoner

You can't compare crime statistics across cities, simply because they don't tell the whole story. As Topaz suggested, Houston could have more crime because people here have more trust in their police department so crime is reported more often. You also have to take into account that Houston is 600 square miles. Vast swaths of the city are safe, and the areas that aren't you naturally learn to avoid. It's not like you're going to walk down the street in the Montrose during the day and become victim of a drive-by. Use common sense, don't fraternize with felons, and you'll be fine.

From CJIS Divison Uniform Crime Reporting - Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics (http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/ucrstat.htm - broken link)

Pitfalls of Ranking

UCR data are sometimes used to compile rankings of individual jurisdictions and institutions of higher learning. These crude and/or incomplete analyses have often created misleading perceptions which adversely affect geographic entities and their residents. For this reason, the FBI has a longstanding policy against ranking cities, counties, states, and universities/colleges on the basis of crime data alone. Despite repeated warnings against these practices, this position continues to be challenged and misunderstood by crime data users.

Locales should not be ranked because there are many factors that cause the nature and type of crime to vary from place to place. UCR statistics include only jurisdictional population figures along with reported crime, clearance, or arrest data. Rankings ignore the uniqueness of each locale. All jurisdictions are affected to some degree by:

* population density and degree of urbanization of the locality and its surrounding area;
* variations in composition of the population;
* the number of residents versus the "policing population," i.e., residents plus daily commuters, transients, tourists, shoppers, etc.;
* economic conditions;
* modes of transportation and highway systems;
* cultural conditions;
* family conditions with respect to divorce and family cohesiveness;
* climate;
* effective strength of law enforcement agencies;
* administrative and investigative emphases of law enforcement;
* policies of other components of the criminal justice system, i.e., prosecutorial, judicial, correctional, and probational.

Of course jurisdictions vary because of things like "economic conditions" and "effective strength of law enforcement agencies." This sounds like political speak to me.

I did see that when FBI crime statistics were used to include Sugar Land as one of the safest cities in the U.S., the FBI said something like, "These rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state or region." The American Society of Criminology said the rankings were "an irresponsible misuse" of crime data.

That being said, how are people supposed to evaluate an area for its safety? The rankings may be flawed but I don't know of a better way to find out about an area short of interviewing a bunch of people and living there as a trial (both impractical).

[sheri257]

Originally Posted by Topaz

That being said, how are people supposed to evaluate an area for its safety?

Exactly. Sure, there's always going to be variations in the data but, if a city is ranked in the top five worst for several years in a row ...

At a certain point ... the *** is up.