San Diego's lower crime rate reflected in annual survey

By Andrew Kleske
Monday, November 22, 2010 at 7:17 a.m.

San Diego had the third-lowest violent crime rate among cities with populations larger than 500,000 last year, behind Honolulu and San Jose, according to newly released FBI data.
Crime rates by city

View the CQ Press report
San Diego boasts one of nation’s lowest violent crime rates
FBI crime statistics

If you are looking for the San Diego area in the annual national report on the nation's most dangerous cities, you'll have to dig pretty deep into the database.

The CQ Press study of cities with more than 75,000 residents found St. Louis overtook Camden, N.J., as the nation's most dangerous city in 2009, while Colonie, N.Y., with a rank of 393, placed as the safest.

Somewhere near the middle of the pack is the City of San Diego, with a rank of 221, an improvement over last year's 191 ranking. Other local cities fared well on the list: El Cajon moved from 178 to 194; Vista from 212 to 235; Chula Vista from 211 to 246; and Oceanside from 247 to 259.

Carlsbad dropped from 323 to 299 and Escondido dropped from 232 to 216.

Detroit, Flint, Mich., and Oakland, Calif., rounded out the top five, with the California cities of Compton, Richmond, Stockton, Vallejo and San Bernardino landing in the top 50.

The study found St. Louis had 2,070.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, compared with a national average of 429.4. That helped St. Louis beat out Camden, which topped last year's list and was the most dangerous city for 2003 and 2004.

The annual rankings are based on population figures and crime data compiled by the FBI. Some criminologists question the findings, saying the methodology is unfair.

Greg Scarbro, unit chief of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, said the FBI also discourages using the data for these types of rankings.

Kara Bowlin, spokeswoman for St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, said the city actually has been getting safer over the last few years. She said crime in St. Louis has gone down each year since 2007, and so far in 2010, St. Louis crime is down 7 percent.

Erica Van Ross, spokeswoman for the St. Louis Police Department, called the rankings irresponsible.

"Crime is based on a variety of factors. It's based on geography, it's based on poverty, it's based on the economy," Van Ross said.

"That is not to say that urban cities don't have challenges, because we do," Van Ross said. "But it's that it's irresponsible to use the data in this way."

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