Why is the crime so bad in SLC? (Salt Lake City, West Valley City: apartment, house)

[Camo_Butterfly]

All crime categories for SLC are significantly above the national average:

Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site

Theft and Motorvehicle theft are just ridiculous.
Rape is more than 3x the national average.

Neighborhood Scout gives Salt Lake City a 0 out of 100 for crime safety.
(100 being the safest).

Area Vibes gives SLC an F for crime.

I'm surprised crime has become this bad in SLC, what has changed over the past 15 years to cause this?

[irman]

Originally Posted by nytedit

Wow. The church should do something about this.

Oh Oh ... First people complain about "The (LDS) Church" manipulating the political nonsense in Utah, and now you want the Church to do something about this?

Why is "The Church" now responsible to do something about this?
Which Church? Only about 50% of the population claims to be LDS ...

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by nytedit

Wow. The church should do something about this.

What?

[Harpaint]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

What?

I took it as sarcasm.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

I always thought UT did a better job of reporting than some other places. Make sure you are looking at apples to apples comparisons, not apples to grapefruit.

[irman]

Back to the question as asked in the first place.

Could it be that there is a start of something bad, which then might result in more crimes?

Utah is at the crossroads of many roads and the drug traffic makes Utah a good centre of what is happening.
So a lot of drugs available maybe, and then more related crimes as a result?

I am not in Law Enforcement, so I have no idea why things are going progressively bad or worse.

I have set up warning signs telling people that they are on camera so please smile.
It seems to deter any possible trespassing ...
(I do have a security camera set up that warns me of any unauthorised entry from anywhere, and I am notified on my phone. I could thus call 911 or whatever else to get the law involved.

My car(s) have a bright blinking red light on the dash stating that our cars are set up with an active alarm system. (actually kind of obnoxious)

Obnoxious, because when you start the car next to one parked, the bloody alarm goes on the car next to the one you want to start ... Too darn sensitive, but you take the bad with the good!
So you have to disarm both cars and then after you start one car you arm the other again ...
Luckily I am about 60 feet away from the street!

[berger12345]

Well for one SLC is the center of an area of 2.5 million people with only 200,000 people in the city proper which makes the stats higher for the city proper. Most of the Inner city resources like homeless shelter, etc are in the city itself and most other areas don’t have resources. So if you look at stats for Salt lake county and Davis county it changes a lot of the crime rate.

[Geo-Aggie]

Originally Posted by berger12345

Well for one SLC is the center of an area of 2.5 million people with only 200,000 people in the city proper which makes the stats higher for the city proper. Most of the Inner city resources like homeless shelter, etc are in the city itself and most other areas don’t have resources. So if you look at stats for Salt lake county and Davis county it changes a lot of the crime rate.

This is the answer.

Crime in Salt Lake City is not misreported or influenced by drugs any more or less than other cities. Crime in Salt Lake City is inflated because it's literally the only place where anything notable happens for about 400 miles in every direction. It's also the central business district for the Combined Statistical Area and only real core in a CSA that is otherwise one giant, north-south sprawling suburb (sorry Provo and Ogden, but you're suburbs), so the daytime business population swells significantly, and the night time entertainment population swells as well. Then the geographic size of SLC is pretty limited, so the actual residential population of 200k is pretty small compared to what you'd find in other cities that tend to consume nearby suburbs as they grow, tempering the per-capita crime statistics. Salt Lake City didn't do this, places like SSL, NSL, Millcreek, and Holladay are their own separate municipalities.

Now of course this isn't to say crime is actually low or even moderate in Salt Lake City, it isn't. It's still pretty high, but it's not like.. the worst in the nation as some of these statistics may suggest. Believe it or not SLC has some rough parts (...walking back to your car from Red Iguana at night will keep you checking your back every 10 seconds.), and even the nice parts have some rough blocks. There were two murders in my Sugar House neighborhood during the two years that I lived there. It is a city and it has city problems, but I think overall the risk of living or spending time in SLC is about on par with any other intermountain city like Denver or Phoenix.

[parentologist]

The impression I have gotten is that SLC has acquired a large homeless, drug addicted population, but is a relatively small urban area. That homeless, drug-addicted population engages in a lot of crime to obtain money for drugs.

Frankly, I'm surprised that the highly conservative population of SLC (50% Mormon) has been willing to put up with this. Of course, when the entire surrounding area for hundreds of miles around is >90% Mormon, SLC is relatively liberal, plus it seems to feel an obligation to "serve" this homeless, drug addicted population with housing, food, "rehab", etc. Meanwhile, the rest of the state doesn't seem to feel this same obligation. So the homeless, down and out, addicted population is funnelled into SLC from all around it, and preys on the population of SLC.

What I don't understand is why SLC doesn't do what NYC did in the 90s, and crack down hard on crime, criminals. If the criminals knew that they'd be picked up and imprisoned for the very first offense, they'd decide to move on to Denver, LA, San Francisco, anyplace else where they'd be less likely to suffer the consequences of their actions. Crime problem solved. If they believe that SLC is easy pickings, with shelters and lots of opportunity for theft, more and more will come.

[manyroads]

Originally Posted by Camo_Butterfly

All crime categories for SLC are significantly above the national average:

Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site

Theft and Motorvehicle theft are just ridiculous.
Rape is more than 3x the national average.

Neighborhood Scout gives Salt Lake City a 0 out of 100 for crime safety.
(100 being the safest).

Area Vibes gives SLC an F for crime.

I'm surprised crime has become this bad in SLC, what has changed over the past 15 years to cause this?

As someone who is supposed to be relocating to the area very soon to start a new job, I am concerned about this as well. Generally speaking, places with colder climates tend to have less crime than those with warmer climates.

I've been reading reviews about apartment communities in different areas in the SLC metro area, and it seems like almost every place, no matter whether it was located in West Valley City, Murray, Millcreek, Taylorsville or even Holladay and Cottonwood Heights, mentions issues with car break-ins. It's very disturbing to someone who has never once had that happen to him to read these comments by people living at the various communities in the SLC area.