Crime Across America – Which States are Most Crime-Ridden?

CQ Press – the organization that annually ranks U.S. cities and states according to crime statistics – has released the 2010 version of the list. Nevada has the worst ranking, New Hampshire has the best.

In a press release, CQ Press announced that New Hampshire received the lowest crime rate ranking again this year, followed by Vermont and North Dakota.  New Hampshire reported only 13 murders out of a population of 1.3 million.  The state had the second lowest rate for aggravated assault with only 94.7 cases per 100,000 citizens in 2008.  

Ranked least favorably among the states was Nevada, followed by New Mexico and Louisiana.  Nevada’s murder rate was just over six times higher than New Hampshire’s, and the Silver State reported a rape rate of 42.4 cases per 100,000 people compared to the national average of 29.3.  Nevada also tops the list for robbery rate, with an average 248.9 reported cases per 100,000 citizens versus the national rate of 145.3, and New Hampshire’s rate of 31.8.  

Here’s a look at the top crime-ridden states –

1.  Nevada

2.  New Mexico

3.  Louisiana

4.  South Carolina

5.  Tennessee

6.  Florida

7.  Delaware

8.  Maryland

9.  Arizona

10. Arkansas

CQ Press said it based its ranking on an analysis of crimes reported to the FBI in six categories.  The methodology used to produce the statistics presented in this book is fairly straightforward and involves a multistep process.  First, the reported crime rates across the six categories—murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft—are compared to the national reported crime rates and then indexed to create a summary score and ranking across six areas of reported violent and property crime. The rest of the analyses are simple calculations of frequency, percent, rate, and percent change of reported crime and other criminal justice information.

CQ Press’s annual rankings of crime in states, cities, and metropolitan areas are considered controversial by some in the law enforcement community. The FBI, police, and many criminologists caution against ranking 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 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 based largely on the fact that there are reasons for the differences in crime rates, not that the rates are incompatible.  

The rankings tell an interesting and an important story regarding crime in the United States.  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.  City Crime Rankings helps concerned Americans learn how their communities fare in the fight against crime.

The new edition of Crime State Rankings features an introduction by criminologist Rachel Boba (Florida Atlantic University) that explains the formula used to compile the rankings and offers new insight into the methodology used by the editors.