Most Dangerous American Cities

Detroit is the most dangerous city in the country, according to a study by CQ Press, a division of Congressional Quarterly Inc.

Out of 378 cities ranked, Milwaukee is the 36th most dangerous.

Other Wisconsin cities on the list:

Racine came in at 167th most dangerous. Kenosha was 243rd. Green Bay was 245th. Madison ranked 269th.

DETROIT (AP) -- In another blow to the Motor City's tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the nation's most dangerous city, according to a private research group's controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics.
The study drew harsh criticism even before it came out. The American Society of Criminology launched a pre-emptive strike Friday, issuing a statement attacking it as "an irresponsible misuse" of crime data.

The 14th annual "City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America" was published by CQ Press, a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc. It is based on the FBI's Sept. 24 crime statistics report.

The report looked at 378 cities with at least 75,000 people based on per-capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft. Each crime category was considered separately and weighted based on its seriousness, CQ Press said.

Last year's crime leader, St. Louis, fell to No. 2. Another Michigan city, Flint, ranked third, followed by Oakland Calif.; Camden, N.J.; Birmingham, Ala.; North Charleston, S.C.; Memphis, Tenn.; Richmond, Calif.; and Cleveland.

The study ranked Mission Viejo, Calif., as the safest U.S. city, followed by Clarkstown, N.Y.; Brick Township, N.J.; Amherst, N.Y.; and Sugar Land, Texas.

CQ Press spokesman Ben Krasney said details of the weighting system were proprietary. It was compiled by Kathleen O'Leary Morgan and Scott Morgan, whose Morgan Quitno Press published it until its acquisition by CQ Press.

The study assigns a crime score to each city, with zero representing the national average. Detroit got a score of 407, while St. Louis followed at 406. The score for Mission Viejo, in affluent Orange County, was minus 82.

Detroit was pegged the nation's murder capital in the 1980s and has lost nearly 1 million people since 1950, according to the Census Bureau. Downtown sports stadiums and corporate headquarters—along with the redevelopment of the riverfront of this city of 919,000—have slowed but not reversed the decline. Officials have said crime reports don't help.

Last year, Milwaukee was ranked the 54th most dangerous city in the nation.

That's not good.

The FBI doesn't put much stock in the study's findings.

"You're not comparing apples and oranges; you're comparing watermelons and grapes," said Rob Casey, who heads the FBI section that puts out the Uniform Crime Report that provides the data for the Quitno report.

The FBI posted a statement on its Web site criticizing such use of its statistics.

"These rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region," the FBI said. "Consequently, they lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents."

I agree that numbers don't tell the whole the story.

Still, it would be much better to have numbers that place Milwaukee on the safer side in the rankings.

As far as metropolitan areas go, Milwaukee ranked the 104th most dangerous among 333 metro areas.

On the up side, the top ten safest metro areas in the nation included three from Wisconsin: Eau Claire (2), Appleton (5), and Wausau (9).

Oshkosh-Neenah (12), Sheboygan (18), and Fond du Lac (20) made the top twenty safest metro areas.