(Mayor) Parker says city's ranking a real crime - Study puts Houston among most dangerous in country

Houston Chronicle ^ | Nov. 22, 2010, 10:10PM | BRADLEY OLSON

[a fool in paradise]

Mayor Annise Parker lashed out at an controversial annual study released Monday that placed Houston among the most dangerous cities in the United States with a population of 500,000 or higher.

"Crime Rankings 2010-2011," published by CQ Press, ranks Houston's crime as ninth-highest for big cities nationwide, placing it on a list with the likes of Detroit and Columbus, Ohio., although the city has less than half the crimes per capita of those atop the rankings. Violent crime in Houston fell 8 percent during the first half of this year and was on a pace to reach the lowest rate since 2000, records show.

Parker said the data released by CQ Press are flawed because the publisher allows different cities to avoid counting certain crimes....

Parker... decided to speak out on the issue because of her role as chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Criminal and Social Justice Committee, said the statistics also can be misleading because they use some arbitrary boundaries to define cities and metropolitan areas...

Not everyone... seems to mind the rankings. Sugar Land, for example, now can claim the mantle of "Safest City in Texas" because of them. The Houston suburb, with its estimated 81,000 residents, was 389th out of 400 cities that made the list, putting it in company with Orem, Utah, and Troy, Mich.

...Ben Krasney, a spokesman for CQ Press, defended the use of rankings, saying it provides context that can help people evaluate what the crime rate in their city means.

...CQ Press calculates crime rate rankings by comparing the rate of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft with national averages.

...This year, Houston registers only slightly higher than Dallas, and the reverse was true last year. San Antonio and Austin appear far lower on the list.

[Islander7]

It takes time to cull the Katrina “victims” from the herd.

My first thought on reading the headline.

[achilles2000]

More culling is in order ;-)

[a fool in paradise]

Sugarland isn’t served by HPD is it?

Houston’s crooks can still take the 59 highway into well-to-do Sugarland to commit crimes.

Houston has the crime problem, not the suburbs. Why is that?

[freekitty]

Geer, I wonder why? /sarc

[Oldpuppymax]

St. Louis, Camden, Detroit, Flint, Oakland...surely there MUST be SOMETHING these cities have in common to make them so crime ridden and dangerous. I just can’t quite put my finger on it!

[SaraJohnson]

Yeah. Bush and Perry really screwed Houston.

[Psalm 144]

That was a scary place.

*******************

It is getting worse.

[Psalm 144]

I see Jackson Miss. came in 14th.

A news radio there used to say come night, it was the gun and knife show.

**********************************

By the way, that radio program was canceled recently. The host was fired without notice or warning just before the November election.

But for Rush, the station is not worth listening to anymore.

[Revel]

Yup...This is the result of being kind to Katrina victims.

[dragnet2]

Bookmark

[Jacktown]

They cancelled that radio show ? That’s too bad.

No wonder my husband couldn’t find it when he went through there recently.

I can honestly say I don’t miss Jackson at all. I stopped carrying a purse when we lived there. I was so scared I’d be robbed getting gas or going into a store. I carried pepper spray everywhere I went.

[TheGrimReaper]

Here's a fact for Mayor Parker - Grim's first-hand experience, not a second-hand anecdote:
Homeowner awakened at 3:15 am (July 2010), looks out window to see 3 or 4 men disassembling vehicle in driveway. Homeowner calls 911, then steps outside with his little 9mm friend and, as the thieves scatter toward their getaway car, puts a couple of rounds into the rear of that getaway car.

Right on schedule, HPD arrives at 6:45 am to fill out the paperwork.

With a 3.5 hour response time, why would a criminal worry about police in Houston, TX?

[a fool in paradise]

I knew 4 people who were carjacked in Houston in the year prior to Katrina with 2 recovered cars (one with a photo ID still in the vehicle) and zero prosecution. 1 passenger was even kidnapped in one of those events.

[I Buried My Guns]

I had an incident a few weeks back. A lady knocked on my door at night with a preposterous story, and I sensed that there was more to it than merely a crazy ghetto-woman needing a sympathetic ear. I sent her on her way with terseness (indeed, I had a gun in my hand the whole time, hidden behind the door as I talked to her), but later found out that my automatic outdoor motion lights had been unscrewed, even in my back yard. I believe it was members of her crew.

Now, my wife sees the wisdom of guns in the house. We were targeted!