TN (Specifically Murfreesboro) Safety Question (Memphis, Chattanooga: 2013, crime rate, credit)

[DCook9567]

Hey all,
My family (wife and two boys under 10) and I are considering moving to TN, looking at Murfreesboro, later this year. We are currently trying to gather information and I noticed a survey that came out a few days ago stating TN as the fourth most dangerous state in the US. Now I know everywhere has it's good and bad areas...I currently live outside of Los Angeles...and everyone who I talk to so far, including my parents who live in Cookeville, say Murfreesboro and TN are great places to live but I am hoping to get more honest opinions from people who actually live in the area.

For reference, here is the blurb about TN...
4. Tennessee
> Violent crimes per 100,000: 579.7
> Population: 6,495,978
> Total 2013 murders: 328 (18th highest)
> Poverty rate: 17.8% (12th highest)
> Pct. of adults with high school diploma: 85.6% (tied-12th lowest)

The aggravated assault rate in Tennessee fell 7.9% in 2013 from 2012 — to nearly 437 incidents per 100,000 residents. Despite the drop, this was the second highest such rate in the country. Aggravated assault incidents accounted for more than 75% of all violent crimes in the state. Low education attainment rates and high poverty rates may partly explain the frequency of such crimes. As of 2013, less than 25% of residents 25 and over had at least a bachelor’s degree, and nearly 18% of all people lived in poverty. Both rates were considerably worse than the national figures. Crime is particularly concentrated in Memphis, where 1,656 violent crimes per 100,000 city residents were reported last year, the third highest among all U.S. cities. The poverty rate and other economic factors were also much worse in the city than in the state as a whole.

[MetropolitanTN]

Murfreesboro is a safe city.

[BeeHoyal]

Originally Posted by MetropolitanTN

Murfreesboro is a safe city.

Most of it is. There are a couple of areas to avoid though.

Something I saw recently: The chance of being a victim of a property crime in Murfreesboro is 1 in 29.
To me that number is too high. That stat has the sound of "people with a drug habit will smash a window and take whatever they can to get their next fix." Murfreesboro is certainly far from alone in that department.

[JJAF]

yep, safe for sure.

[Shakeesha]

Murfreesboro is a safe city. Many new young families and college students are moving here.

[DaveM123]

I moved here from Illinois and have been here for 6 years. Murfreesboro is a very safe city. Most of the crime statistics for Tennessee are skewed by Memphis and Chattanooga. As someone already said - there are a couple of areas to avoid but you'll know then as soon as you see them. And those areas aren't that large. I wouldn't hesitate to move here again.

[steindle]

Originally Posted by DaveM123

Most of the crime statistics for Tennessee are skewed by Memphis and Chattanooga.

It seems a little weird to single out Chattanooga, since the crime rate there is actually lower than Nashville's. (It is 4th in the state, after Memphis, Jackson, and Nashville.)

... But regardless, it's pretty senseless to come to any conclusions about the safety of a particular area from the safety stats of the state at large. It's a huge state. There are easily-avoidable pockets of everything under the sun.

[BirdieBelle]

Originally Posted by steindle

It seems a little weird to single out Chattanooga, since the crime rate there is actually lower than Nashville's. (It is 4th in the state, after Memphis, Jackson, and Nashville.)

... But regardless, it's pretty senseless to come to any conclusions about the safety of a particular area from the safety stats of the state at large. It's a huge state. There are easily-avoidable pockets of everything under the sun.

Yeah, I've lived here 46 years and (by the grace of God and whoever else you want to credit) have never been assaulted, aggravated or otherwise. 23 of those years were spent in the city of Memphis, NOT even the burbs.

Tennessee is about 600 miles across and has a little less than 7 million people, a wide variety of people across the entire spectrum of wealth.

A lot of those people are really uneducated and beat on each other. There is a lot of domestic violence (people who know each other) and drug-related crime. In other words, it's not USUALLY random, minding-my-own-business crime.

There also is apparently as issue with the way the TBI reports crime that makes it seem worse than it is. From what I can remember, for example, if one person was shot and robbed, some states would report that as one crime but TN reports it as two separate incidences, making our overall rate higher.