\HighlightsIs violence principally a big city problem? Rural areas or suburbs or small cities can have higher rates of violence than large cities.
This article examines locations regarding rates of violence and property crimes. The results are surprising.
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Retired federal senior spokesperson. Thirty-five years of directing award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of criminology and public affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University. Former police officer. Aspiring drummer.
Author of ”Success With The Media: Everything You Need To Survive Reporters and Your Organization” available at Amazon and additional booksellers.
Article
A reporter’s question: How can my small southern city have such a big crime problem? Are we alone or are there others like us?
I just did a program with Nick Johnson’s “Unboxing America” on rising rates of violence in small cities and rural areas. It’s true that smaller cities, suburbs, and even rural areas can have rates of crime that exceed large cities.
Per the Bureau of Justice Statistics funded report below and commercial sites tracking crime rates, see 274WallStreet examining homicides and metro areas, it’s often smaller cities or metro areas taking the lead as to crime rates. See my report on the Most Dangerous Cities for additional comparisons.
As you are aware, rates and numbers need to be used with caution because smaller figures can have a big impact on percentage increases. Violence could go up by 50 percent in one location yet the actual numbers could be very small.
Most people expect the highest homicide rates to come from the biggest cities or metro areas like Baltimore or St. Louis or New York, not Danville, IL or Saginaw, MI or Grants Pass OR; three metro areas in the top five per 274WallStreet.
But it’s the report below funded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that’s the real eye-opener. Per the contractor’s report, they are not published BJS statistics.
Why Is This Important?
The reports on locations and crime are interesting because it partially redefines our common assumptions that rural and suburban areas and small cities are safer than big cities.
The purpose of this article is to make sure that the media and politicians-community leaders understand that smaller doesn’t necessarily mean safer when it comes to rates of crime. Your suburb or rural area could have higher rates than large cities.
Improving The National Crime Victimization Survey
Both the FBI (crimes reported to law enforcement) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (an account of reported and unreported crime) analyze their methods of collecting crime data and employ consultants to improve results.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the US Department of Justice undertook an analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey classification of areas as urban, suburban, and rural after the report below was completed.
The report looks at where crime happens. It breaks crime down by the size of urban areas and suburbs and rural areas. It analyzes data from 2010-2015. It’s relevant today because of the huge numbers used and superb research methods. National Crime Victimization Survey numbers tend to be stable over years (with exceptions).
Note that the National Crime Victimization Survey numbers are much larger than crimes reported to law enforcement. Only 40 percent of violent crime is reported per their latest findings.
Some insight; generally speaking, crimes reported to the police are considered serious enough to bring to the attention of authorities. Someone may be hit with a beer bottle by a “friend” during a drunken dispute but it’s not reported because it’s considered a personal matter. But when the National Crime Victimization Survey calls and asks, it’s noted as an unreported aggravated assault. Yes, it’s more complicated than that, but there is a difference in the data collected by the FBI and the BJS. The National Crime Victimization Survey is considered a more accurate account of “all” crime regardless of its reporting to law enforcement.
The victimization survey doesn’t include homicides because you can’t interview dead people.
It Seems Improbable
I routinely write about crime and fear of crime problems in large cities. That’s because I rely on government reports “and” media accounts and most focus on big cities.
Yes, it seems improbable that a city of 250,000 people in the Midwest could have a higher rate of violence than large cities. Nevertheless, it’s true per the chart below.
Definitions Of Violence
How can rural areas in the Northeast and West have more violence than large cities? It depends on your definition of violence. If you break the data down by serious violence (excluding simple assaults) and stranger violence and weapon use and violence with injury it provides greater clarity as to “dangerousness.” More on this below.
For example, rural areas in the Midwest reported a significantly lower rate of firearm violence than the national average. Rates of violence committed by strangers were significantly lower than the national average in rural areas both in the Midwest and the South. Yet some rural areas have higher overall rates than large cities.
But higher rates of violence do not necessarily mean the area is more “dangerous” when considering weapon use, stranger violence, and injuries.
Summary-National Average Rate Of 21.6 Per 1,000 Persons For Violent Victimizations
Violent victimization rates, which include rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated or simple assault, were significantly higher in small and mid-size urban areas in the Northeast, Midwest, and West than the national average rate of 21.6 per 1,000 persons ages 12 or older.
In small urban areas, rates averaged 30.3 per 1,000 in the Midwest and 29.9 per 1,000 in the Northeast.
In mid-size urban areas, violent victimization rates were 33.0 per 1,000 in the Midwest, 30.4 per 1,000 in the Northeast, and 31.0 per 1,000 in the West.
However, rates in small and mid-size urban areas in the South were not significantly higher than the national average.
A greater percentage of violent crime in mid-size (54.5%) and the large (52.3%) urban area in the Midwest was serious violent victimization, compared to the national average (33.6%).
Rates of violent victimization were significantly lower than the national average in rural areas in the South (15.3 per 1,000) and Midwest (15.7 per 1,000), suburban areas in the South (17.1 per 1,000), and large cities in the Midwest (16.1 per 1,000).
Chart
Take a look at the chart below and compare violent crime rates by jurisdiction. Violence in rural areas in the Northeast (19.8) is higher than in Northeast cities of a million or more (17.7). Violence in rural areas of the West (30.9) is higher than in Western cities of a million or more (22.8).
But “serious” violence (excluding simple assaults) is lower in all rural areas. The percentage of serious violent crimes in rural areas is lower than in other locations with some exceptions (i.e., Midwest suburban and small cities).
The highest rates for violence seem to be in medium-sized cities in the Northeast, small and medium-sized cities in the Midwest, and medium-sized cities in the West.
The largest cities of a million or more (the places we read about the most for their crime problems) can have smaller rates of violence with Southern large cities the exception.
Property crimes in rural areas are, generally speaking, lower than most (not all) jurisdictions.
Serious Violence
The rate of serious violence, which includes rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault, was highest in mid-size urban areas in the Midwest (18.0 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older), and this rate was significantly greater than for the nation as a whole (7.3 per 1,000).
Serious violence rates also were significantly higher than the national average in midsize cities in the West (12.1 per 1,000) and small urban areas in the Northeast (11.0 per 1,000).
In comparison, rates of serious violent victimization were significantly lower than the national average in rural areas in the South (4.7 per 1,000), suburban areas in the South (5.7 per 1,000), and rural areas of the Northeast (4.9 per 1,000).
Weapons
Rates of violence involving a weapon and rates of firearm violence were highest in mid-size metropolitan cities in the Midwest, rates of violent victimization involving a weapon were highest in mid-size urban areas in the Midwest (11.9 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older), and this rate was significantly higher than the rate of weapon violence for the nation (4.5 per 1,000).
Other areas with significantly higher rates of weapon violence than the nation as a whole included small urban areas in the Northeast (8.8 per 1,000) and large urban areas in the South (8.6 per 1,000).
The lowest rates of violence involving a weapon (3.0 per 1,000) were found in large urban areas in the Northeast. However, these rates were not significantly lower than the national average.
The national rate of violence involving a firearm was 1.5 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older. Mid-size urban areas in the Midwest (6.1 per 1,000) exhibited significantly higher firearm violence rates than the national average.
Rural areas in the Midwest reported a significantly lower rate of firearm violence (0.7 per 1,000) than the national average.
Violence Resulting In Injury
Rates of violence resulting in injury to the victim were significantly greater than the national average in mid-size urban areas in the Midwest and large urban areas in the South.
The national rate of violence resulting in injury to the victim was 5.4 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older.
Two areas had rates of injurious violence that were significantly higher than the national average: mid-size urban areas in the Midwest (10.0 per 1,000) and large urban areas in the South (7.9 per 1,000).
Large urban areas in the Northeast (3.7 per 1,000) and suburban areas in the South (4.2 per 1,000) had significantly lower rates than the national average.
Violence By Strangers
Rates of violence committed by strangers varied across types of areas more than rates of violence committed by non-strangers. Rates of violence committed by strangers were significantly lower than the national average (8.1 per 1,000 persons ages 12 or older) in rural areas both in the Midwest (4.4 per 1,000) and the South (3.1 per 1,000).
Stranger violence rates were also significantly lower than the national average in suburban areas in the Midwest (5.8 per 1,000) and the South (6.3 per 1,000).
Rates of stranger violence were significantly higher than the national average in numerous urban areas. In the Northeast, the stranger violence rate was highest in mid-size urban areas (14.8 per 1,000), though this rate was not significantly higher than the national average.
In small urban areas in the Northeast, where a greater proportion of persons live, the stranger violence rate was significantly greater (13.6 per 1,000) than the national average.
The stranger violence rate was highest in mid-size urban areas in the Midwest (13.5 per 1,000 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older), and this rate was significantly greater than the national rate.
In the South, the highest rate of stranger violence was found in large urban areas (13.9 per 1,000).
In the West, urban areas of all sizes had significantly greater rates of stranger violence than the national average: 12.1 per 1,000 in smaller urban areas, 15.9 per 1,000 in mid-size urban areas, and 14.0 in cities with the largest populations.
Violent Crimes Reported To Law Enforcement (A Fifteen Percent Difference Based On Where You Live)
A total of 47.1% of all violent crimes in the United States were reported to police (editor’s note-it’s currently 40 percent in 2020).
Levels of violent crime reporting across the 20 different types of areas ranged from a low of 40.2% in mid-size urban areas in the Northeast to a high of 54.6% in Midwest rural areas (editor’s note-this finding could have an impact on FBI numbers).
However, none of the area-reporting rates were significantly different from the national average.
Source
Conclusions From The Report
This report examined victimization across different types of areas in the United States to help further Bureau of Justice Statistics’ efforts to develop subnational estimates of criminal victimization.
Use of this classification revealed that rates of violent and household property victimization varied significantly from the national average in some types of places and that rates of some forms of violence, such as non-stranger violence, varied little across types of places.
For example, in the Midwest and Northeast regions of the country, higher rates of serious violence were found in the small and mid-size cities of metropolitan areas, while in the South and West, higher rates were found in the mid-size and large cities.
Understanding why city size is differentially associated with serious violence across the regions requires further examination of factors such as population composition and other city-level differences. For instance, age and household income are known to be correlates of violent victimization, and higher-rate areas may have proportionately larger populations of young persons and poorer persons than areas with lower rates.
The variation in these rates, however, may also be associated with characteristics of the areas themselves (such as housing and population density, economic and investment activity, and other conditions).
My Observations
Police chiefs and crime analysis experts will show the National Crime Victimization Survey report (or commercial documents) to their mayors who simply can’t (or won’t) believe that their small city or suburb could have higher rates of crime than larger cities.
But it’s my contention that the size and tactics of law enforcement agencies play a major role as to crime and violence prevention and that big-city police departments have a distinct advantage over smaller locations in terms of personpower, tactics, and technology. Criminals understand the limitations of smaller cities and suburban-rural areas and can take advantage of less enforcement.
See More
See more articles on crime and justice at Crime in America.
Most Dangerous Cities/States/Countries at Most Dangerous Cities.
US Crime Rates at Nationwide Crime Rates.
National Offender Recidivism Rates at Offender Recidivism.
An Overview Of Data On Mental Health at Mental Health And Crime.
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