A study based on data developed by Dr. Andrew Schiller’s team at NeighborhoodScout.com, and FBI data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies, has compiled a list of America’s top 25 most dangerous neighborhoods. The selected neighborhoods are those with the highest predicted rates of violent crime in America.
Number one on the list was not a surprise: W. Lake St. in Chicago, Ill., which recorded a predicted 297 annual violent crimes, which is equal to 258 violent crimes per 1,000, suggesting that a person has a 1 in 4 chance of being a victim. This was followed by the Scovill Ave. area of Cleveland, Ohio which recorded a predicted rate of 166 violent crimes per 1,000 or a 1 in 6 chance of being a victim.
In total, Memphis, Cleveland and Chicago had two neighborhoods in the top 25. However, Las Vegas had three neighborhoods in the top 25 and and Atlanta had four, the most on the list. The Las Vegas neighborhoods of Balzar Ave., N. 28th St. and D St. ranked 3, 4 and 8 respectively. In Atlanta, Carter St., Marietta St., Richardson St. and Humphries St. SW ranked 5, 7, 17 and 22 respectively.
In the Carter Street area of Atlanta, found within zip codes 30314 and 30313, residents have a 1 in 8 chance in a year of becoming a victim; compared to Marietta Street, which includes the 30313 and 30303 zip codes, where individuals have a 1 in 9 chance of being a victim.
Most city and town crime data are incomplete and inaccurate because crimes are reported by individual law enforcement agencies (municipal, university, county, etc.), rather than by city or town, and many cities have more than one agency responsible for law enforcement. Even FBI data are reported by agency not by city or town.
The predictive methodology makes use of more than 18 proprietary computer models to statistically estimate the number of violent crimes and property crimes for every neighborhood in the U.S. The resulting neighborhood data is based on the aggregate crime data for the city in which the target neighborhood is located for the most recent year of data available from the FBI.
The violent crimes included are murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, armed robbery and aggravated assault. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
