Motor City Named Nation's Most Dangerous

The Grande Mariner cruises on the Detroit River next to the city's skyline in a June 14, 2006 file photo in Detroit. In another blow to the Motor City's tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the most dangerous city in the U.S., according to a private research group's analysis of annual FBI crime statistics released Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007. The study ranked Mission Viejo, Calif., as the safest U.S. city. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File) (Carlos Osorio - AP)

The mayor of 30th-ranked Rochester, N.Y. _ an ex-police chief himself _ said the study's authors should consider the harm that the report causes.

"What I take exception to is the use of these statistics and the damage they inflict on a number of these cities," said Mayor Robert Duffy, chairman of the Criminal and Social Justice Committee for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The rankings "do groundless harm to many communities," said Michael Tonry, president of the American Society of Criminology.

"They also work against a key goal of our society, which is a better understanding of crime-related issues by both scientists and the public," Tonry said.

Critics also complain that numbers don't tell the whole story because of differences among cities.

"You're not comparing apples and oranges; you're comparing watermelons and grapes," said Rob Casey, who heads the FBI section that puts out the Uniform Crime Report that provides the data for the Quitno report.

The FBI posted a statement on its Web site criticizing such use of its statistics.

"These rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region," the FBI said. "Consequently, they lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents."

Doug Goldenberg-Hart, acquisitions editor at CQ Press, said that the rankings are imperfect, but that the numbers are straightforward. Cities at the top of the list would not be there unless they ranked poorly in all six crime categories, he said.

"The idea that people oppose it, it's kind of blaming the messenger," Goldenberg-Hart said. "It's not coming to terms with the idea that crime is a persistent problem in our society."

The report "helps concerned Americans learn how their communities fare in the fight against crime," CQ Press said in a statement. "The first step in making our cities and states safer is to understand the true magnitude of their crime problems. This will only be achieved through straightforward data that all of us can use and understand."

The study excluded Chicago, Minneapolis, and other Illinois and Minnesota cities because of incomplete data.

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Associated Press writer Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

CQ Press: http://www.cqpress.com

American Society of Criminology: http://www.asc41.com