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No it doesn't. It looks exactly the same. One crime/500,000 people is equivalent to two crimes/a million people. Your probability of exposure to crime is identical in both cases.
To answer the OP: New Mexico historically has had problems with poverty, gangs, crime, which on a per-capita basis are higher than the national average. In New Mexico these issues tend to be spread out more. Other cities in the U.S. also have a lot of crime, but they tend to be concentrated more in specific places like inner-city ghettos.
So that's one difference. A second difference is that historically there has been a lot of apathy from the police in NM in the way they deal with crime in Hispanic and Indian communities. The police don't care and as a result they don't exert as much effort in maintaining public safety in those areas. Which means that crime is allowed to run its course. In other U.S. cities you hear about police apathy in minority communities. Well, NM is kind of like a "big minority community" - Hispanics and Indians are spread throughout the state and make up a large portion of the population.
In the United States, places where you see a lot of public safety are where the white people are and where the money is.
Why did you give a "thumbs up" to the drug trade?
I was not giving a thumbs up to the drug trade....i was giving a thumbs up to the original poster......the drug trade is evil and I do not approve it so thats not what i meant.I do thumbs up a lot of times to be friendly.I did not mean to offend you.Sorry for the confusion.
that claims NM is dead last on best places to raise a family. They cite poverty, quality of education, etc but my question is this:
Are all the crime, poverty, etc claims we hear so much about skewed heavily by the population on the reservations? I'm not blaming them, just wondering if that heavily influences the numbers?
It's important to bear in mind that these surveys typically have an intended audience of a middle- or upper-class person considering relocating. Advertisers want to sell subscriptions to periodicals, clickable ads, moving services, realtor services, etc., and steer you clear of their competitors, including in other locales.
If you're an upper-class retiree not from NM, after you move to NM, you'll still be an upper-class retiree.
NM is just full of people in poverty. Their experience skews NM's numbers, but those numbers have limited applicability to someone moving into the state. They're not going to suddenly develop an abusive spouse, or a traumatic childhood, or a meth habit, as soon as they put down a deposit on an apartment. But these numbers suggest they will.
People tend to be poor on reservations but in general most rural dwellers in NM aren't all that well-off. Isolation from employment and services is a trigger for poverty we as a society haven't made as much progress against.
NM has historically been one of the poorest states and probably has always been at the bottom of the safety ranking for that reason. The poorer you are, the harder it is to insulate yourself from crime.
On a positive note, we are the only state with no hate groups in 2018, according to the SPLC. Texas had 73; Arizona 20; Colorado 22. What can those states learn from New Mexico?
The only counter weight I would say about this is that we have more gang activity per capita than any other state. I don't think gangs are formed and actions perpetrated out of love.
Here's a map of the United States showing gang presence from 8 years ago. You see most of the country is white or grey (indicating lack of gangs). You see a handful of bright orange and red spots indicating the highest concentration of gangs - including Bernalillo county and places like Chicago and OK City. (You also see a big red swath in SoCal - no suprises there.)
This may be one of the goofiest statements I've ever heard.
According to the map you posted, Louisiana has little "gang presence", but according to 2017 stats has the highest murder rate. Missouri also has little gang presence but has the 2nd highest murder rate. Your gang map shows California as very red, but California ranks 28th in murder rate. So there seems to be no clear correlation between gang presence and murder rate. It seems people can kill each other just fine without help from gangs.
So there seems to be no clear correlation between gang presence and murder rate. It seems people can kill each other just fine without help from gangs.
Gangs kill. Furthermore, not only do they commit "crimes of passion" (which is what most non-gang-related homicide is), but most of their crimes are committed with premeditation (robberies, drug trafficking, laundering money, etc) and are done as part of ongoing business of operating outside the law. So not only do they directly kill, but some of their activities (drug trafficking, weapons trafficking) indirectly result in the proliferance of second-hand crimes committed by other people who are not in gangs.
For you to say that gangs don't cause problems in the community is ludicrous.
Also that link you just posted shows that NM ranks #12 for murder rates, only a couple slots below Illinois (Chicago). If you're trying to post evidence of how crime-free NM is, that isn't the right link to do it.
Also that link you just posted shows that NM ranks #12 for murder rates, only a couple slots below Illinois (Chicago). If you're trying to post evidence of how crime-free NM is, that isn't the right link to do it.
Usually NM ranks first in various crime statistics, so I think it's worth noting that for murder rate we are no. 12. That is much better than being no. 1 in case you didn't notice. If the gang presence here is as bad as you are claiming, why aren't we no. 1 in murder rate as well? Maybe the gang presence is actually having a kind of protective effect. Why does New Hampshire show gang presence in all but one county, yet have the lowest murder rate in the nation? While Louisiana has much less gang coverage than NH and the highest murder rate? And if you were trying to get away from Albuquerque gangs why did you move to Santa Clara County where there are even more gang members? Several things don't add up here.
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