LAWRENCE, KS — For the second consecutive year, Nevada today was named the nation’s most dangerous state. The announcement was made in Crime State Rankings 2005, an annual reference book published by Morgan Quitno Press, a Lawrence, Kansas-based independent research and publishing company. At the opposite end of the rankings scale, North Dakota once again was the nation’s safest state, an honor that it has held for eight of the 12 years that the company has issued its awards.

"Nevada is the nation’s fastest growing state and with those rapid changes come struggles with crime and other problems,” said Scott Morgan, President of Morgan Quitno Press. “Its violent crime rate increased nearly 8% in the five years from 1999 to 2003, while nationally, violent crime rates have decreased 9%.”

The 12th annual Most Dangerous and Safest State designations were based on six basic crime factors reported in Morgan Quitno’s just-released annual reference book, Crime State Rankings 2005. 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 2003 crime statistics, the most recent final state data available from the FBI.

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

“There was no change to the order of the top and bottom five states between this year’s and last year’s results,” said Morgan. He added, “While our study is hardly good news for Nevada, there is a bright spot: the state’s violent crime rate dropped last year, perhaps signaling a new, downward trend in crime for Nevada.”