For the past decade, CQ Press (formerly Morgan-Quitno) has produced an annual report ranking cities across the U.S. for their "dangerousness." While these rankings grab the media's attention, CamConnect takes issue with both the methodology employed as well as the entire notion of ranking cities by "level of danger".
Crime in Camden is a significant problem that deserves serious attention, but labeling a city as "most dangerous" further entrenches a city laden with public relations problems. CamConnect hopes to provide additional context on public safety to turn an alarming number into a productive discussion
Why Rank at All?
1. What does "danger" ranking accomplish? Crime is not a contest, and branding an entire city with a single number gives a misimpression of uniformity that makes crime harder to understand. Crime is not randomly distributed. The vast majority of crime takes place in a small subset of places and situations within a city. Most perpetrators know their victims. The non-residents most likely to be surprised or scared away by a crime ranking are also among those least likely to be victims of the crime they fear.
Problems with the Ranking Methodology
2. To compare crime in different cities, CQ Press only adjusts for population. Doing so gives the false impression that population size is the only independent factor that interferes with a valid comparison. In reality, historical, budgetary, and geographical differences (among many others) also determine local crime rates.
3. The rankings depend on a formula that gives equal weight to six categories of crime: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft. In essence, CQ Press counts murder and shoplifting the same way.
4. The federal Uniform Crime Reporting data used to generate the rankings rely on local police departments to accurately classify and report crime. In cities all over the country, intense performance pressure and high political stakes have at times led some departments to underreport their data, preventing a fair comparison even among single categories of crime in similar cities.
5. By the time the ranking is published, the data are almost a year out of date. The delay could make a city’s standing appear inaccurately high or low. When the 2009 rankings were published in November 2009 using year-end 2008 data, Camden’s crime rate in most categories had decreased dramatically from the previous year, yet Camden’s ranking increased, obscuring recent improvements.
Other Organizations' Warnings Against the Crime Rankings