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NeighborhoodScout ranks Berkeley 43rd of Top 100 Most Dangerous Cities in U.S.
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NeighborhoodScout, an online self-described "relocation resources and information" website has ranked Berkeley as 43rd among the Top 100 Most Dangerous Cities in the U.S.
Analysis by author.
This no doubt comes as a surprise to many in the East Bay, who might have thought that Oakland was a shoe-in for most dangerous East Bay city with 120 murders in 2007 and 124 in 2008.
But there may be another surprise - an analysis that I performed in October 2008 to try to understand what influences Alameda crime rates compared to other East Bay cities and using just-released FBI 2007 crime states combined with then-current U.S. Census Bureau data on population places Emeryville ahead of both Oakland and Berkeley when measured by total crimes per 10,000 people. Emeryville, with it's relatively low population of just over 9,000 people scored 1,402 crimes per 10,000 people, compared to Berkeley's score of 765 and Oakland's score of 789.
Analysis by author.
When ranking East Bay cities by violent crimes, such as murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, Oakland rises to the top with 192 violent crimes per 10,000 people, and Berkeley slips to fifth place behind Oakland, Emeryville, San Leandro and Union City. (San Francisco is included for the purposes of comparison.)
Emeryville still ranks high, despite its relatively large police force. Again, using FBI data, I charted the number of sworn officers per 10,000 residents, including San Francisco for comparison. Emeryville came in with 43 sworn officers per 10,000 residents, well ahead of Oakland's 18 and Berkeley's 17.
I also charted the number of sworn officers per 10,000 residents, which is included below. Note that Emeryville ranks highest by this measure - 43 sworn officers per 10,000 people.
And because I was interested in the relationship between housing density and crime, I plotted a scatter graph showing the relationship between density and violent crimes per 10,000 residents, based on the same data. That chart is shown below.
When looking at the chart, note the outlier at the top middle, Oakland, with 192 violent crimes per 10,000 people, and a population density of 7,127 people per square mile. That's San Francisco at the far right, with a population density of 16,634 people per square mile, and 87 violent crimes per 10,000 residents. Berkeley comes in at 9,823 people per square mile and 63 violent crimes per person. The solid black trendline is rising up towards the right, indicating a positive correlation between higher population density and violent crime, at least for East Bay cities based on 2007 FBI crime data.
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Now, the FBI will caution you against making “simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting cities and counties.” Their report lists 13 factors "known to affect the volume and type of crime occurring from place to place, which include:
- Population density and degree of urbanization.
- Variations in composition of the population, particularly youth concentration.
- Stability of the population with respect to residents’ mobility, commuting patterns, and transient factors.
- Modes of transportation and highway system.
- Economic conditions, including median income, poverty level, and job availability.
- Cultural factors and educational, recreational, and religious characteristics.
- Family conditions with respect to divorce and family cohesiveness.
- Climate.
- Effective strength of law enforcement agencies.
- Administrative and investigative emphases of law enforcement.
- Policies of other components of the criminal justice system (i.e., prosecutorial, judicial, correctional, and probational).
- Citizens’ attitudes toward crime.
- Crime reporting practices of the citizenry.
On their website, NeighborhoodScout explains that "Our exclusive crime data are calculated to the neighborhood level by applying our algorithms to municipal crime statistics from the FBI." I have sent a request for clarification to Dr. Andrew Schiller, the founder of Location Inc., which owns and operates NeighborhoodScout, but I'm still waiting for a response.
In the meantime, it seems best to take the FBI's advice and not rely on any simple measure of crime or safety, as my own analysis shows that the rankings can change depending on what one measures.
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