Is San Bernardino really the most dangerous city in California? (Los Angeles: crime rate, loans)

[LivingalloverCali]

It was all over the news - especially in the LA area. A new study called San Bernardino the most dangerous city, and obviously not just off crime rate. While I've seen many of these lists before, they are almost all based on crime rate alone; however, this study cites the FBI saying that would be an inaccurate representation. So the study analyzes crime rate; community factors like high school graduation rates, poverty levels and population size; "hot" days, and other things to draw their final rankings.

Check it out here: [url=http://www.gddlaw.com/2016/05/12/cities-california-dangerous/]Which Cities in California are Most Dangerous? - Graham Donath[/url]

For everyone who lives in San Bernardino, what do you think of this method? Do you agree (semi-agree) with the outcome, or at least the analysis techniques?

[medweedfeelsgood]

It's up there forsure. You can see for yourself on Baseline St and I would just go by the rates since many of those factors seem rather irrelevant.

[medweedfeelsgood]

I also want to mention that the top dangerous cities always happen to be the same ones. Its just that some years some cities have more going on than others but they always rotate. Oakland, SB, stockton, LA, Compton and Richmond are always neck and neck.

[SUPbud]

One of the ways to review a studies' validity to to cross-check it with other peers' studies.

Your source is a law firm in Riverside, who claims they pulled their data from the FBI UCR.

CSU Long Beach and UC Irvine both have "big" criminology departments. I wold compare the studies coming out of those two, see if they use similar methods - and in the case of the UCR - do they come to similar conclusions with the same data? They *should*. What if they *dont*?

[coltoncity]

They said something about the poverty and lower education rates etc being a part of it. Does the murder rate include the mass shooting in December? If so it would be much lower this time of year. That being said there are neighborhoods I would not drive through at night. Saturday it will be about 115 and things get worse in the extreme heat.

[AFtrEFkt]

When it gets to the point the SBPD tells the citizens it's time they should be arming themselves, then it's safe to assume San Bernardino is indeed one of the state's most dangerous cities.

https://www.rt.com/usa/san-bernardin...upt-crime-003/

'Lock your doors and load your guns: San Bernardino warned of uncontrollable crime as police squad shrinks'

A San Bernardino city attorney told residents this week to gather arms and prepare to defend themselves since the bankrupt town can no longer afford the law enforcement it needs.

During a city council meeting Wednesday, City Attorney Jim Penman urged residents of the bankrupt Californian city to “lock their doors and load their guns” to protect themselves.

City officials prepared a budget plan earlier this month that would attempt to tackle the $45.8 million deficit partially by cutting benefits for city workers like firefighters and police officers, as well as eliminating 80 cops from the force altogether.

“Let’s be honest, we don’t have enough police officers. We have too many criminals living in this city. We have had 45 murders this year… that’s far too high for a city of this size,” Penman said.

The cuts will leave the city with just over 200 sworn officers – a small number in a city of 213,012 that is plagued with crime. The city’s police department has also cut down on the number of people answering its emergency phone lines: problematic in a city that was ranked America’s sixteenth most dangerous in 2004. San Bernardino has also seen a 50 percent increase in murders this year compared to 2011, and this week’s council meeting was actually called in response to the brutal murder of a 76-year-old woman in a neighborhood that is usually quiet.

During the meeting, Police Chief Robert Handy also emphasized the need to reduce the city’s drug problems and theft. But in a region where prisons are already overcrowded and the streets are overwhelmed with gang violence, San Bernardino faces heavy obstacles.

“We are trying to refocus and pay a little more attention to those (types of crimes) because honestly, those are the ones we get complaints on,” Handy said, reports the local Sun newspaper. “We may not come out immediately, but many of those transients have been arrested more than 50 times. There’s no room for them in jail.”

With an inadequate police force, no room in prison, and no money to gather resources, Penman believes city residents must fend for themselves.

“People have asked me what should we do? Go home, lock your doors, and load your gun,” he told the crowd of nearly 150 people at the city council meeting.

San Bernardino filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 1 after acquiring more than $1 billion in debt. The city was the third in California to go bankrupt in just over a month.

In the mid-2000’s, San Bernardino took out $190 million in bonds and loans to finance city construction, but budget problems arose after the 2007 housing crisis. Before it declared bankruptcy, 75 percent of San Bernardino’s budget had gone to public safety agencies to tackle crime.

Penman has come under scrutiny for encouraging residents to stock up on firearms, but City Councilwoman Wendy McCommack further explained the statement to CBS News.

“We need to take our streets back, we need to take our neighborhoods back and we need to protect our homes, and that’s what I think Jim was trying to say,” she said.

That's a 2012 article.

Here's a 2016 article.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.ba54516537ea

[Beardown91737]

As said earlier, it earns top ranking every once in a while. Sometimes for murder rate, another less well known is for the amount of body parts found.

I worked in San Bernardino in the Hospitality district for 17 years and no problems. However one of my co workers had worked at a Winerschnitzel years before as a high schooler and it was robbed when he was on shift. I refereed soccer games at the SB Soccer complex and on one occasion someone attempted to steal another referee's car by punching out the ignition.

I would think that there are more dangerous parts of larger cities like Los Angeles, Oakland, and Long Beach, whose stats are diluted by nicer areas that aren't near the bad areas.

[RockyRoadg]

I have lived in San Bernardino for almost 30 years and have had only a few minor problems.

[murfslaw]

Originally Posted by RockyRoadg

I have lived in San Bernardino for almost 30 years and have had only a few minor problems.

Yup. San Berdu is the place to be!

[lae60]

I live in the mountains above SB.

I think that SB is large enough that there really is more than one demographic of the area. In some areas it is VERY dangerous, like the gang infested 'Baseline' area. But there are also some pretty nice gated areas.

Sort of like saying LA is dangerous, well, maybe south/central--Watts, and east LA, BUT not areas like the beach front million pus dollar homes--Malibu.

So someone in LA may live in a $10m home on the beach and say, 'nope LA is safe'. But someone living in East LA or Watts would say, 'yep it an unsafe ghetto full of gangs, drugs and murders'.

SB is like that. It has some very diverse areas, with some being very safe and some very dangerous.