Police dispute danger findings
By GENEVA WHITMARSH Special to the Daily Press
Santa Monica is the nation’s 135th most dangerous city, according to a Kansas-based company’s recent study of cities with populations of more than 75,000.
The 350 cities included in the yearly survey were scrutinized in six crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. Final 2002 statistics, released by the FBI in October, were used to determine the rankings.
The City of Santa Monica’s placement climbed 42 spots from the previous year — to 177 — but police officials caution taking the study at face value because it fails to take into account factors such as tourist population. “(The study) gives people a false representation of what the community is really like,” said Santa Monica Police Lt. Frank Fabrega. “If you look at the general community, that’s one thing, but there are 150,000 people in the city every day, and that number swells to as many as 500,000.”
By comparison, Miami Beach is smaller than Santa Monica, but has more police officers and a larger police budget, and is still ranked as more dangerous, Fabrega added. Miami Beach and Santa Monica are similar in tourist and resident population.
The survey’s creators say it does not look at population density, economic conditions, strength of local law enforcement agencies, citizen attitudes toward crime, cultural factors, education levels, crime reporting practices of citizens and family cohesiveness. The nation’s overall crime level also plays a role in the outcome.
“Santa Monica has more people, property and automobiles within its borders during a year than any other 8.5-square-mile, 85,000-population community in the state of California,” Fabrega said.
Amherst, N.Y. was tapped the nation’s safest city, according to the study, followed by Brick Township, N.J.; Mission Viejo, Calif.; Simi Valley, Calif. and Cary, N.C., respectively.
Detroit topped the list as the study’s most dangerous city. On its notorious heels were St. Louis, Mo; Atlanta, Ga; Camden, N.J.; and Washington, D.C.
Locally, Compton ranked as the nation’s sixth most dangerous city, while Los Angeles was 54th; Glendale, 291st, and Burbank was 292nd. The study also examined crime in metropolitan areas. In those rankings, The Pine Bluff, Ark., metro region was considered the most dangerous, while the Bangor, Maine, area earned the title of safest.
The Los Angeles-Long Beach metropolitan area was the 13th most dangerous, followed closely by Houston, Tex., and Phoeniz-Mesa, Ariz.
The methodology for determining America’s most dangerous/safest city and metropolitan area involves a multi-step process, said Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quinto Press, the company behind the study.
Final statistics were plugged into a formula that measured how a particular city compared to the national average for a given crime category. The outcome of that equation was then multiplied by an equal weight assigned to each of the six crime categories.
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. Those weighted numbers were then added together for a city’s final score. Those scores were ultimately ranked from lowest to highest to determine which cities were safest and most dangerous.
Like the last five years’ studies, all cities of populations exceeding 75,000 that reported data for the six categories of crime measured for the survey were included. In previous years, the population cut-off for cities was 100,000.
Morgan said that, while the methodology appears rather complicated, it results in fairer treatment because a city or metro area’s crime record is measured against the national average.
Peter Tigler, a member of the Pico Neighborhood Association and former chairman of the neighborhood board, said he, like Fabrega, believes the statistics don’t take into account the high number of visitors that converge on the city on a daily basis. The Pico neighborhood consistently experiences the highest level of crimes committed within the city.
Tigler, however, contends the tourists, visitors from LA and a high number of transients on the streets could easily be a factor in the city’s placement in the survey.
“Perhaps we could make more sense of these statistics if we knew the addresses of the people committing the crimes,” he said.
Police department records show a 4.5-percent drop in violent crimes from 2001 to 2002, and the figures have continued to descend. According to the SMPD’s Web site, crime has declined in nine of the last 10 years, and seven years in succession, for a total of 59 percent over the last decade.
Crime statistics in the last seven months show an 8-percent dip in crime from the same time last year, said Fabrega.
“If this continues, crime in the city will be at its low-est since 1957,” he said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 11, 2004. Read the original PDF.