Flint, Detroit among most dangerous cities

CAMDEN, N.J. (WJRT) -- (11/23/09) -- A national study ranks the New Jersey city of Camden as the nation's most dangerous city in 2008.

St. Louis, Oakland, Calif., Detroit and Flint, Mich., round out the top five.

The annual rankings from CQ Press are based on FBI-compiled crime data and population figures. Some criminologists say the methodology is unfair.

Camden is no stranger to the top of the list. It was the most dangerous city for 2003 and 2004 and is consistently in the top 10. The bad ranking comes during a year when the number of murders has dropped amid major changes to the police department.

The study found Camden had more than 2,300 violent crimes for every 10,000 residents last year.

The safest city with more than 75,000 residents was Colonie, N.Y.

New FBI data show a sharp increase in hate crimes based on anti-gay or religious bias.

Overall, the number of reported hate crimes increased about 2 percent from last year. These same figures show a nearly 11 percent increase in hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and a nearly 9 percent increase in hate crimes based on religion. The largest category, racially-motivated hate crimes, fell less than 1 percent.

The increases may be party due to more law enforcement agencies reporting hate crimes data to the FBI: 2,145 agencies in 2008, compared to 2,025 agencies the year before. In total, there were 7,783 hate crimes reported to the FBI last year, and seven murders were categorized as hate crimes.

Get more Local »

violence, crime, flint, detroit, local

• Comment Now
• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•