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Old 02-08-2010, 04:59 PM
 
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I've always lived in a low-crime area...I have no experience with crime, really. But I'm sick of winters and thinking of moving away for college. The thing is that when I read about crime rates I get very alarmed and I have no idea what constitutes a high crime rate or not. I know that there is a U.S. average but since it also includes small towns I don't feel it's as accurate for cities and BIG cities. So, what would YOU consider a high violent crime rate? Per 100,000 residents? Is a murder rate of, say, 20 per 100k high? I live in a city of 100k where there is usually around 1 murder per year...
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Old 02-08-2010, 05:10 PM
 
Location: Underneath the Pecan Tree
15,982 posts, read 35,053,880 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spoken View Post
I've always lived in a low-crime area...I have no experience with crime, really. But I'm sick of winters and thinking of moving away for college. The thing is that when I read about crime rates I get very alarmed and I have no idea what constitutes a high crime rate or not. I know that there is a U.S. average but since it also includes small towns I don't feel it's as accurate for cities and BIG cities. So, what would YOU consider a high violent crime rate? Per 100,000 residents? Is a murder rate of, say, 20 per 100k high? I live in a city of 100k where there is usually around 1 murder per year...
1 per 100k
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Old 02-08-2010, 05:36 PM
 
Location: 30-40°N 90-100°W
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The following might give you some sense of average for larger places. True there might be under-reporting in some places, but it should be okay as your looking for average rather than making a statement on a specific city.

Table 4--Preliminary Semiannual UCR (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/2009prelimsem/table_4.html - broken link)

Of course it only gives raw numbers so you might need a calculator to figure the rate per 100K. Going by that murder rates in large cities look roughly the same as the national average. Possibly more like 6 per 100K than 5, but pretty average if I read it right. However I don't see many large cities with murder rates under 2 per 100K or at least not much under that. Rates of rape seem to be 15-20 per 100K, again if I'm reading it right and calculating it right.

So a "safe city", I'm hypothesizing, would have a murder rate under 4 per 100K and a rape rate under 15 per 100K. Cities with more than 8 homicides per 100K are "dangerous" I gather and the rest are in average range. Although in many to most cases cities vary by neighborhood with some affluent areas being quite low in violent crime.
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Old 02-08-2010, 07:31 PM
 
Location: New York
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jluke65780 View Post
1 per 100k
This.
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Old 02-08-2010, 07:42 PM
 
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It's really hard for larger cities because many cities have neighborhood with very high rates, and then neighborhoods with extremely small rates.


I would say 3.0/100,000 or below is pretty safe.
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Old 02-10-2010, 12:46 AM
 
Location: Chicagoland
4,027 posts, read 7,259,277 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jluke65780 View Post
1 per 100k
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Originally Posted by Infamous92 View Post
This.

Yes. Even one is too much.
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Old 02-10-2010, 04:28 AM
rah
 
Location: Oakland
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I guess i would say that murder rates under 10/100k are low to average, 10-20/100k is moderate, and 20+/100k is high.
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Old 02-10-2010, 04:48 AM
 
Location: 30-40°N 90-100°W
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That's a somewhat relaxed standard as I think Chicago and Miami would be moderate according to it.
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