Indianapolis Crime Rates vs. Top Ten Cities By Population

As regular readers of this blog know, I like to gather data in order to look at a variety of issues.  While on the campaign trail, I wanted to get a better grasp on how hopeful we could be as a City, that crime could be diminished.  To do that, I looked at crime rates for Indianapolis compared with the rates in the top ten US Cities by population.

The data originated with the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, which categorizes crime in ten broad areas: total violent crime, murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, total property crime, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.  The FBI warns against rating cities by crime rates, and I believe I am avoiding that - you can judge for yourself as this entry proceeds.

The data are from 2009, the last full calendar year for which the FBI has released its Uniform Crime Report.  While Evansville, Fort Wayne, and South Bend crime stats are reported by the FBI for January-June 2010, Indianapolis is missing from the list for some reason.

I looked at the Indianapolis crime rate for each of the ten broad categories of crime, compared with the top ten US Cities by population in 2009 (Indianapolis was listed as the 14th most populous City in that report).  I then simply noted the number of top ten Cities with a rate higher than Indianapolis.  The top ten Cities were:

New York, NY (8,400,907)
Los Angeles, CA (3,848,776)
Chicago, IL (2,848,431)
Houston, TX (2,273,771)
Phoenix, AZ (1,597,397)
Philadelphia, PA (1,547,605)
Las Vegas, NY (1,377,282)
San Antonio, TX (1,373,936)
San Diego, CA (1,314,773)
Dallas, TX (1,290,266)

with Indianapolis weighing in at 813,471 people

Here are the Number of top ten US Cities (by population) with rate of crime higher than Indianapolis in 2009:

Total Violent Crime : 2
Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter : 4
Forcible Rape : 1 (and one not reporting)
Robbery : 3
Aggravated Assault : 0
Total Property Crime : 1
Burglary : 0
Larceny-theft : 1
Motor Vehicle Theft : 6
Arson : 1 (and one not reporting)

Interestingly enough, New York and Los Angeles were the only two Cities with lower crime rates than Indianapolis in all categories.  None of the top ten Cities had a higher rate in more than half the categories.

For me, this indicates that we should be able to bring down our crime rate in all of these categories (with the possible exception of motor vehicle theft), and that we have something to learn from other Cities.

Keeping Our Fingers Crossed on Murders

Following on the heels of the Forbes 'safest cities' faux pas, the Star lends a hand to Mayor Ballard by running a piece in today's edition on how we just might squeak through 2009 with fewer than 100 murders. That sure would be nice.

For those who like to follow these things, BartLies.com devotes at least 95% of its efforts to real time tracking of murders in our community.

Community policing gets the nod as to what is having an impact. Of course, trends up in violent crime are usually credited to increased percentages of teenage youth in a community or something equally outside of public safety control, while dropping rates are credited to some police action. That aside, Scott Newman's analytical approach to proving that something works, then repeating those proven activities, was a real advantage in our City. Hopefully that emphasis is not gone with his departure.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that there indeed are fewer than 100 homicides in Indianapolis in 2009. Then lets keep our fingers crossed that IMPD can pinpoint how to keep that number dropping.

OOPS ! That's Different Then, Never Mind !

Well color the 25th floor embarrassed ! Seems Mayor Greg Ballard's press release bragging about Indy being included in Forbes' list of the 40 safest Metropolitan Areas was a tad premature. Turns out the Indianapolis metropolitan area ranks 36th out of the 40 largest such areas in the Country when statistics for the combination of violent crime rate, workplace fatalities (hey ! we're the worst in this category !), traffic deaths (we rank 26th), and natural disaster risk (we rank 19th).

Gary Welsh over at Advance Indiana has already noted the Star article in today's edition, byline by Tom Spalding. At least Tom read the Forbes list before just publishing the Mayor's press release which the Star has posted on its website.

I went to the Forbes list and broke it down by 2008 violent crime rate alone, where Indianapolis metropolitan area comes in 30th of the 40 largest. Here is the ranking for that category:

Violent Crime Rank	Metro Area	MSA Population
1	Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA	2,207,462
2	San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA	1,819,198
3	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	3,344,813
4	Austin-Round Rock, TX	1,652,602
5	Denver-Aurora, CO	2,506,626
6	Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA	1,596,611
7	Pittsburgh, PA	2,351,19
8	Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN	2,155,137
9	Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI	3,229,878
10	Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH	4,522,858
11	New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	19,006,798
12	Columbus, OH	1,773,120
13	Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC	1,658,292
14	San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA	3,001,072
15	Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH	2,088,291
16	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	5,358,130
17	Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ	4,281,899
18	Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA	4,115,871
19	Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX	6,300,006
20	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA	5,376,285
21	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA	12,872,808
22	Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, CA	2,109,832
23	St. Louis, MO-IL	2,816,710
24	Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI	1,549,308
25	San Antonio, TX	2,031,445
26	Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI	9,569,624
27	Kansas City, MO-KS	2,002,047
28	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD	5,838,471
29	San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	4,274,531
30	Indianapolis-Carmel, IN	1,715,459
31	Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC	1,701,799
32	Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL	2,733,761
33	Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX	5,728,143
34	Baltimore-Towson, MD	2,667,117
35	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL	5,414,772
36	Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN	1,550,733
37	Jacksonville, FL	1,313,228
38	Orlando-Kissimmee, FL	2,054,574
39	Las Vegas-Paradise, NV	1,865,746
40	Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI	4,425,110

I pulled down the 2008 FBI report on the number of violent crimes for a few rather random Cities across the US. Note the Forbes ranking is for Metropolitan areas, not just the major City in that area. Using the population data and the number of violent crimes, I calculated the number of violent crimes per 1000 people. All other numbers are from the FBI report. The cities are arranged alphabetically in the next table. If you'd like to peruse the entire list yourself it is found at : 2008 FBI Crime Statistics data set

City	Population	Violent crime	Violent crime per 1000 people
Boston	604,465	6,676	11.0
Detroit	905,783	17,428	19.2
Indianapolis	808,329	9,735	12.0
Los Angeles	3,850,920	26,553	6.9
Miami	427,740	5,709	13.3
New York	8,345,075	48,430	5.8
Oakland	401,587	7,905	19.2
Philadelphia	1,441,117	20,771	14.4
San Francisco	798,144	6,744	8.4

City	Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter	Forcible rape	Robbery	Aggravated assault
Boston	62	237	2,398	3,979
Detroit	306	330	6,115	10,677
Indianapolis	114	475	4,023	5,123
Los Angeles	384	949	13,422	11,798
Miami	63	42	2,415	3,189
New York	523	890	22,186	24,831
Oakland	115	338	3,323	4,129
Philadelphia	331	1,038	9,618	9,784
San Francisco	98	166	4,108	2,372

The FBI Uniform Crime Report does caution about comparing different cities crime rates as these are self-reported numbers. But, they are also the best information we have. In the Star article Robert Vane, spokesman for Mayor Ballard, reiterated the claim that the Indianapolis crime rate has dropped 6% since Ballard took over in January of 2008; but no details have been forthcoming. The FBI has not yet released its report for 2009, so we also have no benchmarks for comparisons.

At the end of the day, the Ballard administration's over eagerness to bathe itself in self-congratulations is an excuse for us to look at the success or failure of our City's crime prevention efforts through a broader lens than we normally do. It is of concern that we rank worst of the 40 largest metropolitan areas for deaths on the job. That should be a wake-up call. It is of concern that New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington DC (of all places) metro areas are all 'safer' than the Indy area when it comes to violent crime. I guess the question is, does the Mayor look at crime the same way? Or is his administration cherry picking the statistics that show his efforts in their best light? Just like they were trying to do by celebrating our ranking on the Forbes list.