Per the  FBI:

[Rankings] provide no insight into the many variables that mold the crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region, or other jurisdiction. Consequently, these rankings lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting cities and counties, along with their residents.

To which I say: yes, but!

Specifically, comparing data at the bottom and top of a crime ranking may reveal patterns that are otherwise difficult to detect due to the sheer complexity of causal pathways. For example, here are some of the factors known to affect the volume and type of crime:

  • Population density and degree of urbanization.

  • Geographical size of jurisdiction (longer distances to crime scenes = longer response times, so need more police, holding other factors constant)

  • Variations in composition of the population, particularly juveniles/young adults.

  • Stability of the population with respect to residents’ mobility, commuting patterns, and transient factors.

  • Modes of transportation and highway system.

  • Economic conditions, including median income, poverty level, and job availability.

  • Cultural factors and educational, recreational, and religious characteristics.

  • Family conditions with respect to stability and family cohesiveness.

  • Climate. (Warmer weather = more crime, holding other factors equal)

  • Effective strength of law enforcement agencies (it’s not just sheer numbers though, officers must be well-managed/trained and moved around to the right areas to optimize deterrence,  response times, and clearance rates).

  • Administrative and investigative emphases of law enforcement. (sufficiently staffed and skilled investigative units = more case closures/arrests)

  • Policies of other components of the criminal justice system (i.e., prosecutorial, judicial, correctional, and probational).

  • Citizens’ attitudes toward crime.

  • Crime reporting practices of the citizenry.

So what can we learn by comparing US cities with the lowest and highest robbery rates? First, the low-robbery cities:

“Children” includes individuals up to 18 years old.

Ok, so the low-robbery cities are relatively affluent and well-educated, on average. However, Surprise, Arizona doesn’t seem to fit with this overall pattern: Surprise has a lot of children in poverty and adults with no education past high school, both factors associated with higher crime rates. What’s up with that? Is Surprise doing something that mitigates the risks of poverty and limited education? Could other cities learn from its example?

See, this is one of the benefits of pattern-seeking: you find exceptions to the rule and that can lead to fruitful questioning.

And now for the cities with the highest robbery rates:

“Children” refers to individuals up to 18 years old.

It looks like low-robbery cities are smaller, whiter, more educated and richer than the high-robbery cities, on average. The biggest difference was percent of children in poverty: 6% to 27%. Cleveland stands out with its awful numbers for poverty (31%), children in poverty (48%), and median household income ($39, 041). Yet Cleveland’s robbery rate is just 57% of Oakland’s and Oakland is the more affluent town. In this context, I’d like to know what keeps robberies down in Cleveland and pushes them up in Oakland. Answering that question may be broadly useful in our ongoing battle against crime in American cities.

Links:

Variables Affecting Crime https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2011/resources/variables-affecting-crime#:~:text=Variations%20in%20composition%20of%20the,poverty%20level%2C%20and%20job%20availability

US City Crime Rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate#cite_note-CDE-1

Profiles of US Cities: http://censusreporter.org/profiles/