How Safe is Your City?

Find out how your city ranks in our 12^th Annual America's Safest (and Most Dangerous) Cities Award competition. For just $4.99, you can download a 28-page report in PDF format that instantly provides you with city and metro crime data, rankings, methodology and other important information about this year’s award. Order now and you can immediately download the document to your own computer and read or print using the free Acrobat Reader program.  Click here for more details and to see if your city is included.

Methodology

The methodology for determining America’s Safest City and Metro Area involves a multi-step process. First, 2004 city and metro area crime rates per 100,000 population (the most recent comparable final numbers available, released by the FBI in October 2005) for six basic crime categories — murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft — were plugged into a formula that measured how a particular city or metro area compared to the national average for a given crime category. The outcome of this equation was then multiplied by a weight assigned to each of the six crime categories. Each of the six crimes was given equal weight. By weighting each crime equally, cities are compared based purely on their crime rates and how they stack up to the national average for a particular crime category. These weighted numbers then were added together for a city or metro area’s final score. Finally, these scores were ranked from lowest to highest to determine which cities and metropolitan areas were safest and most dangerous.

While this methodology appears rather complicated, it results in fairer treatment because a city or metro area’s crime record is measured against the national average. The farther below the national average, the higher (and better) a city or metro ranked in the final Safest Cities and Metros list; the farther above the national average, the lower (and worse) a city or metro ranked in the final list.

As in our last seven years' awards, all cities of 75,000 population or more that reported data for the six categories of crime measured for the survey were included in the competition. In previous years, the population cut-off for cities was 100,000+ population. There was no population minimum for metropolitan areas.  In all, 369 cities and 330 metro areas were included in the survey.

A Word About Crime Rankings 

Morgan Quitno’s annual rankings of crime in states, metro areas and cities are considered by some in the law enforcement community as controversial.

The FBI, police and many criminologists caution against rankings according to crime rates. They correctly point out that crime levels are affected by many different factors, such as population density, composition of the population (particularly the concentration of youth), climate, economic conditions, strength of local law enforcement agencies, citizen’s attitudes toward crime, cultural factors, education levels, crime reporting practices of citizens and family cohesiveness. Accordingly, crime rankings often are deemed “simplistic” or “incomplete.” However, this criticism is largely based on the fact that there are reasons for the differences in crime rates, not that the rates are incompatible. This would be somewhat akin to deciding not to compare athletes on their speed in the 100-yard dash because of physical or training differences. Such differences help explain the different speeds but do not invalidate the comparisons.

To be sure, crime-ranking information must be considered carefully. However the rankings tell not only an interesting, but also very important story regarding the incidence of crime in the United States. Furthermore, annual rankings not only allow for comparisons among different states and cities, but also enable leaders to track their communities’ crime trends from one year to the next.

We certainly do not want to be irresponsible in our presentation of state and city crime data. Our publications help concerned Americans learn how their communities fare in the fight against crime. The first step in making our cities and states safer is to understand the true magnitude of their crime problems. This will only be achieved through straightforward data that all of us can use and understand.