New Crime Rating Springfield, MA 40th worst city in the country

[elnene2k]

Originally Posted by Justin Sparks

The value I percieve in a resource like city-data forums is people, very often families with children, can come to get info, opinion, and real experience from real people about an area, hopefully with a degree of unvarnished truth. Thinking about the possibility that the opinions put forward might have even the slightest impact on someone's decision where they settle and bring their kids to live and the streets they walk is sobering and not at all a trifle. Just as someone who is young and single might be enthusiastic about the challenges inherent in an attempt at urban revitalization, families with children will have different priorities with more pressing responsibilities of another magnitude.

Of course it's always incumbent on anyone thinking of relocating to perform their own due diligence and to remember an open internet forum is but one source of info, one that can be skewed, is but a snapshot taken from one viewpoint, might contain ancillary agendas, and ultimately fades back into anonymity without consequence.

Conventional wisdom suggests several actual visits to a prospective area, time permitting, best done at different times of the year and times of the day. That said, time is often not permitting hence folks will sometimes be all in a rush to gather what info that might be gleaned in a hurry. Good, solid, fast info is hard to come by.

Although I've disagreed with you in other posts Justin, this is a great post by you and one all should follow whether they get negative or positive info on an area here on these forums...

I have not been to Springfield lately but certainly sounds like a place in transition...I hope for good in all areas but if it wasn't for people like us, that have good intentions on life and want to better ourselves as well as other communities, then this place called Earth will never get better...

So although Springfield is not for everyone, I praise all that believe in it and decide to love it for what it is...These are the people that give hope to these places in dire need of help and people willing to make the sacrifice to make them better...

[mr2448]

Originally Posted by JuJu83

In the national crime rankings, Springfield, Mass. has fallen as low as #51 within the past three years -- from a high of #18 in the early 2000s. (This year Springfield ranks 35th. In 2010, there were 16 murders in the city -- a slight uptick.)

Compare Springfield's most recent crime statistics (2010) with Hartford's and New Haven's -- the latter in which I currently live. In 2010, Hartford is ranked 19th in the US crime rankings. New Haven is ranked 18th. Last year, in New Haven, (a city of 128k population vs. Springfield's 155k,) there were 24 murders. There were 23 in Hartford.

As of this week, (April 10, 2011,) there have already been 10 homicides in New Haven. Similarly, there have been 10 in Hartford.

Compare this with Massachusetts' mid-sized cities, Springfield and Worcester: to this point, (April 10, 2011,) there have been 6 homicides in Springfield and 5 in Worcester.

Springfield's crime numbers are notably down (nearly in half) from their heights in the late 1990s and early 2000s... I'd imagine that this is one reason Springfield seems to be revitalizing.

In my opinion, the perception of excessive crime in Springfield is unfortunate, because it's actually safer than many comparable cities. Unfortunately, perception is reality for a lot of people.

So far in Providence there have been no homicides this year. Total last year was 16 down from 23 the year before. Summer is still to come. I wonder how many total shootings there are in each city. To me that is the true test of a community. I know first hand that some gang related shootings in Providence are not reported to the media if there are just minor injuries.

[lrfox]

^The thing with shootings and homicide numbers is that they really tell us very little. There's so much that goes into how each incident is reported. The line between a homicide and an incident that is not a homicide can be razor thin. If a man is shot in the head and the bullet miraculously misses anything major and he survives (happens more often than many think. Gabrielle Giffords is a prime example, and my brother survived such a scare- accidental - with little more than a scar to remind him), then it's not a homicide (attempted murder, yes... but it's not a notch in the homicide column). However, if someone is shot in the leg and the bullet clips the femoral artery and they bleed out, before reaching the E.R., it IS a homicide. With gunshots, the difference between life and death can be distance from the hospital, emergency response times, and much much more.

Another point worth noting is that homicide numbers don't take into account specific instances. They are just a running tally of murders. This can GREATLY affect the perception of those numbers. Case in point: in 2008 (you can check this on City Data), Old Orchard Beach, Maine had a sky-high homicide rate. The reason is because one man murdered his family of 5. In a town of 7,000 people, that translates to a homicide rate of 1:1400. Astoundingly high. The problem with reading into those numbers are two fold:

1) It was a single incident. 5 horrible deaths. However, it's not even remotely reflective of the safety of that particular community (a very safe little town). I know this example is extreme, but even in a city like Springfield, you have double and triple homicides that take place. The homicide number may tick up to 3, but it's a singular incident and (from an outsiders take) is not so much different than a single homicide. If Springfield has a 30 homicides but only 15 incidents resulting in homicide, it's a lot different than 30 individual incidents resulting in murder. You can't pull that from standard statistics and it really does make quite a difference.

2) Are the crimes random in nature? To me, 10 completely random murders if FAR more off-putting than 100 drug/gang related murders. In the Old Orchard Beach incident above, the murderer killed his family. He was a disturbed individual, but he posed very little threat to other citizens who had no relation to him. He targeted his victims specifically because of their relationship with him. Does it make the incident less tragic? No. But it does mean that OOB really poses little threat to the outsider in terms of being murdered in spite of the staggering homicide stats. It's the same in many New England cities. You rarely hear of a random passerby being gunned down or stabbed to death. More often than not, it's gang activity, drug related or of a personal nature (fighting over a girl, etc). Even more often, the incident takes place in one of a few notorious neighborhoods in each city.

As far as bystanders go (I know someone will bring it up), it's impossible to avoid being a bystander. Sure, you may be able to take some precautions to slightly reduce risk (steer clear of the worst neighborhoods as much as possible), but you can't set anything in stone. The two bystanders mentioned in the story above were in downtown Springfield. It's not known if they live there or live in the 'burbs and were just partying for the night (every suburbanite goes to the city for work, fun, culture, etc occasionally).

And as far as fear of being murdered goes, it's slightly ridiculous. If you really like stats, try these on.... You have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of being murdered in Springfield (calculated using the 2009 homicide numbers) in a year's time. That doesn't take into account how "random" they are and how many incidents there were. You have a 1 in 5,500 chance of being killed in a car accident within a year. Those odds increase if you commute further on a daily basis. If you're afraid of being killed or seriously injured, driving 15-20 miles each way for work and living in the 'burbs is FAR more dangerous than living in the city and driving 2-4 miles each way for work (using mass transit is even safer).

I completely get why someone may not want to bring up a family in an urban area. I do. However, the "fear" of cities goes beyond ridiculous at times. Springfield is far from Utopian. I'm not even fully convinced it's well on it's way vast improvement right now (I think it will eventually, but that's another debate). Still, if you don't have kids (and even if you do and don't mind an urban environment) and you want walkability, good value in real estate, amenities close by, etc. then there's no reason Springfield won't be a good fit. You're far more likely to die in a wreck commuting into town from some perfect pristine hamlet 20 miles away then you are to be killed in violence on city streets.

[Justin Sparks]

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
John Galsworthy