Most dangerous (Las Vegas, Reno, Henderson: violent crime, to live, safest)

[redwhiteblue]

I was surprised to hear this on the morning news today


Silver State Wins Title For Fifth Straight Year

(Washington, DC) -- Nevada has captured the dubious honor of being named the nation's most dangerous state for the fifth straight year. That's according to CQ Press, the reference division of Congressional Quarterly. As the nation's fastest-growing state, the authors say Nevada has seen increases in all six crime categories surveyed -- murder, rape, aggravated assault, burglary, robbery and car theft -- from 2005 through 2006. Louisiana is the second most-dangerous state, followed by New Mexico, South Carolina and Arizona. New Hampshire has won the title of the safest state this year, followed by Maine. North Dakota, which held the ranking for ten straight years, fell to third this year. Vermont and South Dakota round out the top five.

[What!]

Why is there always the whole "Most dangerous" stuff going on in the media all the damn time? Most dangerous city, most dangerous, state, most dangerous town, most dangerous street, most dangerous highway, most dangerous street corner, most dangerous etcetera and etcetera. Sheesh. I hate to rant this early in the morning but whenever I want to go some place I always have to hear about how dangerous it is from somebody, "It's really dangerous there. Don't go." And sometimes when I get there it isn't really that dangerous. I was thinking about visiting Milwaukee recently I got the usual, "Don't go there. It's really dangerous!" I'm just tired of all this stuff.

[handitak]

would it be LV more than reno?

[olecapt]

It is a bit of a put on. Among Ciities of above 100,000 people Reno is 68th and Las Vegas 98th. Reno better than Vegas but both are much worse than Henderson. NLV is between Reno and Las Vegas. There are 150 such cities. So Reno and Henderson are actually in the better half and Las Vegas is the middle third.

What is really being shown is that Las Vegas has a high stolen car rate and that Nevada is actually a very urban state...that is the percentage of its population in urban areas is very high.

But does Nevada actually have a crime problem? Pretty much no...it is not good enough to feature but not bad enough to need a fix.

The real reason for this rackup is that it would be hard for CQ to sell the UCR data that is freely available from the feds. So they declare stolen cars a violent crime and get a different rackup. Lets them sell information that is available for free.

[Tressa]

They are going to have a news broadcast tonight stating that Alaska is the most dangerous State to live, I still waiting to see where the danger lies. Every big city has crime and Anchorage is the biggest city in Alaska so I'm assuming it's anchorage.

[Tressa]

Will be interesting as this summer we are moving from Anchorage to northern Nevada so I guess I'm moving from one dangerous state to another. Dang go figure does this mean it's poor choice on my part or bad information, I vote bad information

[garth]

It's been a topic of conversation on some of the local talk shows. The overal gist of the conversation is that it's LV skewing the numbers for the entire state.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by garth

It's been a topic of conversation on some of the local talk shows. The overal gist of the conversation is that it's LV skewing the numbers for the entire state.

Unless you live in Henderson where you point out that it is LV, Reno and NLV skewing the data. Henderson has a much better point than Reno.

In fact it is structural and the inclusion of stolen cars as a "danger" crime even though it is not considered a violent crime.

Just a way to sell lists.

[sheriff]

Originally Posted by olecapt

Unless you live in Henderson where you point out that it is LV, Reno and NLV skewing the data. Henderson has a much better point than Reno.

In fact it is structural and the inclusion of stolen cars as a "danger" crime even though it is not considered a violent crime.

Just a way to sell lists.

Car theft is VERY serious, as oftentimes a stolen vehicle is used in the commission of another crime, or after a robbery, etc. By the way, carjacking is a "good", or justifiable shoot. http://os.cqpress.com/Press%20Releas...ngs%202008.pdf

[garth]

FYI, "carjacking" is street vernacular. It is actually a "Robbery" where the property taken happens to be a motor vehicle. It involves the use of force or fear to take a motor vehicle from the person in control of the item. It is a crime against person and is already included in Part 1 crimes (Uniform Crime Report - FBI).

On the other hand, simple "Car Theft" does not involve the forced taking of a vehicle from the owner. There is no use of force or fear used against the person in control of the vehicle. It is a property crime, but it is also included as a Part 1 crime.

As for the statement about a "justifiable shoot," I hope nobody believes that statement in such a broad manner. It's not always true.

I don't want to get into an entire discussion about it since it would be off-topic and probably end up in a highly charged or severly opinionated discussion. Let me just say that the issue needs to be entered into in an educated manner, justified by the reasonable state of mind of the victim, the circumstances of each event and the varying laws in each state. Any broadly applied recommendation, like the one that was made, can be very harmful if someone takes it to heart without thinking.