Library Weblog

Crime Stats

Early last week CNN had a story about a reference book - the new edition of City Crime Rankings. It is rare that a reference book gets headlines.

We don't buy City Crime Rankings because it is essentially a recompilation of the data from the Uniform Crime Reports which we do have. It does the 6th grade math for you. Here is how you can do it for yourself. To obtain a rate, divide the number for the crime of your choice by the population figure. Then multiply by an appropriate number to get the "rate per xx inhabitants" you want.

Example: 2004 Takoma Park Auto Theft (154/17875) x 1000 to get a rate of 8.615 per 1000 inhabitants. What does this mean? Look at the rates in other cities or at other times (see below). Of course this is easier to do using copy and paste from the online edition. But we do have the paper copy if you prefer it.

For crime statistics see:
R 364.1 UNITED Uniform crime reports for the United States. (Crime in the United States)
It sits next to
R 364.1 SOURCEB Sourcebook of criminal justice statistics.

Please note: The tallies will be close to those published by individual cities but not exactly the same, as some crimes are subsequently reclassified, the FBI no doubt makes an occasional typo, etc.

(Edited March 26 2006 to note: the TP Police Department is again publishing the local crime tallies on the web)

Here are some examples of tables constructed using that method (Just to encourage you. No guarantees as we are librarians not statisticians. Go look up the data and make your own constructs.)

Comparing the DOJ published Uniform Crime Reports for Takoma Park, Greenbelt and Westminster and dividing by the population estimates.
2004 crimes/1000 persons
Takoma Park: 43.972
Greenbelt: 67.869
Westminster: 44.196

All three have local police departments

1. Takoma Park is inside the beltway, a close-in suburb, bordering densely urban areas including DC and some parts of Langley Park in unincorporated PG and Montgomery Counties. (police)
2. Greenbelt, slightly larger than Takoma Park, is just outside the beltway, a more distant suburb that does not border urban and low income areas. It has the highest per-capita crime rate of the three cities. (police 54 officers)
3. Westminster, about the same size as Takoma Park, is rural. The overall crime rate is similar to Takoma Park's but the type of crime is different. (police 43 officers)

Census Bureau US 2000 numbers (not the same as the FBI estimates)
Takoma Park: 17,299 | per capita income $26,437 | individuals below poverty level 10.3%
Greenbelt: 21,456 | per capita income $25,236 | individuals below poverty level 10.2%
Westminster: 16,731 | per capita income $20,320 | individuals below poverty level 9.6%

An aside: Have you looked at the SocioEcon mapper. We have no print equivalent.

Here are our pictures (approach them with scepticism - please make your own) followed by the source data from which we constructed them.

Source Data

Extracted from Uniform Crime Reports

2000	Takoma Park		Greenbelt		Westminster
pop	19471	per 1000	22689	per 1000	16189	per 1000
homicide	1	0.051	3	0.132	1	0.062
rape	5	0.257	10	0.441	1	0.062
robbery	97	4.982	83	3.658	21	1.297
assault	27	1.387	72	3.173	58	3.583
violent	130	6.677	168	7.404	81	5.003
burglary	137	7.036	152	6.699	133	8.215
larceny	494	25.371	864	38.080	731	45.154
auto theft	166	8.525	278	12.253	42	2.594
arson	0	0.000	0	0.000	9	0.556
property	797	40.933	1294	38.08	915	56.520
total	927	47.609	1462	64.437	987	60.967
2001	Takoma Park		Greenbelt		Westminster
pop	17556	per 1000	21775	per 1000	16980	per 1000
homicide	1	0.057	0	0.000	0	0.000
rape	4	0.228	9	0.413	2	0.118
robbery	70	3.987	76	3.490	16	0.942
assault	28	1.595	74	3.398	42	2.473
violent	103	5.867	159	7.302	60	3.534
burglary	150	8.544	178	8.175	122	7.185
larceny	562	32.012	944	43.352	598	35.218
auto theft	198	11.278	422	19.380	29	1.708
arson	0	0.000	0	0.000	14	0.824
property	910	51.834	1544	70.907	763	44.935
total	1013	57.701	1703	78.209	809	47.644
2002	Takoma Park		Greenbelt		Westminster
pop	17827	per 1000	22111	per 1000	17242	per 1000
homicide	0	0.000	1	0.045	1	0.058
rape	6	0.337	14	0.633	3	0.174
robbery	2	5.161	106	4.794	19	1.102
assault	26	1.458	71	3.211	91	5.278
violent	124	6.956	192	8.683	114	6.612
burglary	107	6.002	160	0.045	119	6.902
larceny	639	35.845	957	43.282	620	35.959
auto theft	229	12.846	418	18.905	30	1.740
arson	0	0.000	0	0.000	6	0.348
property	975	54.692	1535	69.422	775	44.948
total	1099	61.648	1727	78.106	883	51.212
2003	Takoma Park		Greenbelt		Westminster
pop	17852	per 1000	22211	per 1000	17287	per 1000
homicide	2	0.112	3	0.135	1	0.058
rape	9	0.504	11	0.495	4	0.231
robbery	67	3.753	79	3.557	17	0.983
assault	28	1.568	46	2.071	109	6.305
violent	106	5.938	139	6.258	131	7.578
burglary	156	8.739	142	6.393	107	6.190
larceny	447	25.039	952	42.862	615	35.576
auto theft	176	9.859	399	17.964	41	2.372
arson	0	0.000	0	0.000	12	0.694
property	779	43.637	1493	67.219	763	44.137
total	885	49.574	1632	73.477	894	51.715
2004	Takoma Park		Greenbelt		Westminster
pop	17875	per 1000	22293	per 1000	17558	per 1000
homicide	0	0.000	3	0.135	0	0.000
rape	2	0.112	9	0.404	0	0.000
robbery	58	3.245	105	4.710	12	0.683
assault	29	1.622	54	2.422	66	3.759
violent	89	4.979	171	7.671	78	4.442
burglary	133	7.441	151	6.773	75	4.272
larceny	410	22.937	799	35.841	592	33.717
auto theft	154	8.615	392	17.584	31	1.766
arson	0	0.000	0	0.000	9	0.513
property	697	38.993	1342	60.198	698	39.754
total	786	43.972	1513	67.869	776	44.196
5 yrs	Takoma Park		Greenbelt		Westminster
pop avg	18.12		22.22		17.05
homicide	4	0.04	10	0.09	3	0.04
rape	26	0.29	53	0.48	10	0.12
robbery	384	4.24	449	4.04	85	1.00
assault	138	1.52	317	2.85	366	4.29
violent	552	6.09	829	7.46	464	5.44
burglary	683	7.54	783	7.05	556	6.52
larceny	2552	28.17	4516	40.65	3156	37.02
auto theft	923	10.19	1909	17.18	173	2.03
arson	0	0.00	0	0.00	50	0.59
property	4158	45.89	7208	64.88	3914	45.91
total	4710	51.99	8037	72.34	4349	51.01

Note: The population estimate for Takoma Park for 2000 seems oddly inflated, but that is the number used by the FBI.

Posted by library at November 25, 2005 08:29 PM