LV area ranked 8th most dangerous

Monday, Nov. 22, 2004 | 11:05 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE

The Las Vegas metropolitan area is ranked as the eighth most dangerous in the nation in a report released today.

The report, released by Morgan Quitno Press, a Kansas research and publishing firm, is based on 2003 FBI statistics for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and car theft.

The firm has been releasing these types of rankings for several years. Las Vegas placed 12th on the list of most dangerous metro areas list in 2003, and in 2002 it was ranked as the 10th safest.

Metro Police couldn't be reached for comment this morning, but in the past law enforcement authorities and those who study crime have questioned the reliability of the numbers on which the study's rankings are based because of the differences in the way the numbers are compiled from city to city and across jurisdictions.

Another factor that skews analysis of Las Vegas' crime statistics is that the numbers reflect only the resident population and not the tourists that can swell the city's population by about 100,000 on any given day, law enforcement authorities have said. Adding tourists into the calculations would drive down Las Vegas' crime rate, authorities said.

Morgan Quitno, which also conducts studies on the intelligence, health and livability of states, looks at each metropolitan area's rates and then ranks the area based on how it stacks up against the national rates.

The Detroit metropolitan area was named the most dangerous metro area, while Camden, N.J., has been named the nation's most-dangerous city.

Atlanta, St. Louis and Gary, Ind. rounded out the top five in the most dangerous city rankings, which was to be released today by Morgan Quitno Corp. The company publishes "City Crime Rankings," an annual reference book that will be published next month. Detroit fell to second in this year's list.

However, company president Scott Morgan told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in its Sunday edition that he had been unaware that St. Louis police omitted 5,760 crimes from their 2003 crime data. Provided with the correct data, Morgan found that St. Louis would have switched places with Atlanta.

The other communities in the top five were Amherst, N.Y., which had been ranked as the safest city for the past four years, followed by Mission Viejo, Calif., and Clarkstown, N.Y.

The Pine Bluff, Ark., metropolitain area was listed as the most dangerous city last year, while Bangor, Maine, was called the safest.

The scores given in this and last year's rankings were calculated using the same methodology and are comparable, but Morgan Quitno cautioned comparisons in rankings because 16 cities,are in this year's survey that were not considered last year. In addition, 12 cities that reported data last year did not this year and were not considered. This change makes a direct comparison of rankings inaccurate, the company's Web site said.

Further, 27 cities, most notably Chicago and other Illinois cities, were not included because of how that state defines sexual assault. That state considers sexual assault as all types of rapes, while the survey considers sexual assault just as a rape involving a woman as the victim.

Other cities with populations over 75,000 that were not included in the study included Kansas City, Kan.; New Haven, Conn.; Green Bay, Wis. and Canton, Ohio.

They were not considered in the study because of reporting difficulties, computer issues and changes in reporting systems, Morgan Quitno said.