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Didn't Miami go through a period of incredible violence?
Yeah but that was during the height of the crack epidemic. Miami has calmed down. I believe Houston had the title a couple years back in the 80s. But the El Paso/Jaurez thing intrigues me. Jaurez has over 2000 murders and it's across a river from a city that has less than 10 so far. El Paso is one of the safest cities in the nation.
How is this shocking? I was a newly discovered area that was practically lawless... and there was gold..
You were a newly discovered area???? j/k
Assuming you were talking about SF, I brought up that point to start this thread about how could a city with such a small population have so many murders, thus giving it such a high murder rate. To say the least, they are unofficial murder rates, but I have never seen a city or neighborhood with even an "unofficial" murder rate that high.
Unmarried males 16-35 are, I believe, the main source of murder so a place dominated by those will often be violent. Particularly if there is a good deal of alcohol use. (Meth, cocaine, and opiates can also be a factor but of those I think only opiates was a "player" in 19th c. California) Although their stats in that year were weirdly high so the transient "boom" nature of the place at the time was presumably also a factor.
Granted there are towns with high numbers of unmarried young men that aren't too violent, but I think often times such places are military or college towns.
the juarez valley in mexico has a murder rate of 1,600 per 100,000, due to the violence between drug cartels. i wonder if that's the highest rate ever recorded?
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Originally Posted by frsno1
I had done some research before on the history of San Francisco, when I came across this interesting tidbit of information. During the gold rush, San Francisco had an 1850 population of approx 35,000 people and an 1856 population of approx 50,000. In 1856, there was a Sacramento newspaper claimed that there had been 1,400 murders in San Francisco during the past six years.
That works out to roughly 233 murders a year. I understand these are unofficial numbers, but if that's true, that works out to a murder rate of between 466 murders per 100,000 to 665 murders per 100,000.
Again, I know these are unofficial numbers, but was there anything comparable to these shocking murder rates anywhere in this nation's history?
From what I remember, Los Angeles early in the 19th century when it was very small, actually had a considerably worse record. Apparently it was a place known for fighting duels, and one year a sizable percentage of the population died in such fights, something like 10%.
I'm not sure if I remember that correctly, I read it a long time ago and don't know how to look it up.
In Pawhuska, Oklahoma, there was an oil boom in 1921, and by 1925 there were 60 murders still under investigation in a town whose population never exceeded 6,000. That's one percent of the population of the town, or 1,000 per 100,000, known to have been murdered with cases open. Less than a century ago. There is no way of knowing exactly how many murders there really were, and it is likely nobody counted..
Maicao is a Colombian border town adjacent to the oil boom in Venezuela. 30 years ago it already had a reputation as a town in which nobody would venture outdoors after dark, and even backpacker travel guides warned people to stay away. They are still recording up to a dozen murders a month, in a city of 100,000.
I know this is and old thread but you can't compare neighbourhoods to cities (comparing Juarez to Englewood)... cities are filled with bad, and good neighbourhoods.
The highest homicide rate ever for a country was El Salvador in 1995, 139.1 and 7977 murders.
Last year (2012) the murder rate of San Pedro Sula, Honduras (pop. = approx 700,000) was 173. There is also this factors; "Honduras university says murder rate in San Pedro Sula actually higher than reported" and in the video it says something about the murders on the outskirts of the city not even being accounted for.
For cities above 100,000 people , New Orleans rate in 2007 was 94.7 and other then East St. Louis in 1991 with a rate of 162 (population is low, 40,000 people), there is no city I could find that had a higher rate (in the USA). Compton's highest rate was something like 91 in 1990 (it's population was 90,000). I really don't believe anything under 100,000 should be in the discussion tho of most dangerous cities (murder wise) as neighbourhoods have larger populations then that in some cases.
Now I can't find specific stats, but like any city, San Salvador (El Salvador Capital) has it's safe and dangerous areas. There are 6 districts and districts 5 and 6 have very high rates, where as 3 and 4 are like European cities and 1 and 2 are slightly higher... with that being said... 4 relatively safe districts, two very dangerous ones... But uh with a murder rate of 90 per 100,000 in 2011 (people get murdered at the same rate as robbed - robbery rate low, murder rate high, both are 90), and most of the crime happening in those two districts... I mean I can only guess since I can't find statistics but I'd bet it's over 500+ in those regions (again this is not a fact, just a guess). Also I wonder what the San Salvador murder rate was in 1995, I'm thinking that is the highest murder rate in the world for any city in history. But right now I have it has San Pedro Sula in 2012, with 173... and then of course there is more dangerous areas in that city, but I cannot find stats on that. But as you can imagine, very high...
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