as the Nation’s Most Dangerous State

Vermont Wins the Safest State Title

LAWRENCE, KS — Louisiana once again is the nation’s most dangerous state. The announcement was made in Crime State Rankings 2003, an annual reference book published this month by Morgan Quitno Press, a Lawrence, Kansas-based independent research and publishing company.  At the opposite end of the rankings scale, Vermont is the nation’s safest state, knocking off long-time winner North Dakota, which held the honor for six consecutive years.

"For five of the ten years that we have issued the Safest and Most Dangerous State designations, Louisiana has ranked as the nation’s Most Dangerous State,” said Scott Morgan, President of Morgan Quitno Press. “The state’s murder rate not only is the highest in the country but also is double the national average.”

The 10th annual Most Dangerous and Safest State rankings are based on six basic crime factors reported in Morgan Quitno’s annual reference book, Crime State Rankings 2003. Factors considered were rates per 100,000 population for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. States are ranked based on how they compare to the national average for each crime category. The findings are based on 2001 crime statistics, the most recent final state data available from the FBI.

Joining Louisiana at the top of the rankings list (in descending order) were Nevada, Arizona, Florida and Maryland. On the safer end of the rankings scale immediately preceding Vermont were last year’s winner North Dakota, Maine, South Dakota and New Hampshire.

“Despite the not-so-good news about Louisiana’s crime situation, the state is making progress,” said Morgan. “The state’s violent crime rate has decreased more than 19% in the five years from 1997 to 2001, better than the national average decline of 17.4%.”