A crime ranking survey released today lists Oakland as the fifth most dangerous city in the U.S.
The annual survey by CQ Press, a division of SAGE Publications, ranked Oakland as the fifth most dangerous city and Richmond sixth. Oakland’s No. 5 ranking is an improvement over last year, when it ranked third.
Among other Bay Area cities, Vallejo was No. 33, Salinas was No. 57, Antioch was No. 91, Berkeley was No. 111, San Francisco was No. 130, San Jose was No. 237 and Santa Rosa was No. 242.
CQ Press said its crime rate rankings are based on six categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors said in a statement today that the list is “a premeditated statistical mugging of America’s cities.”
Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said, “These ranking present a gross misuse of FBI data. Everyone with the slightest knowledge of this issue knows the rankings are not credible, but the publication persists with them, presumably because rankings are popular and sell books.”
The Conference of Mayors said the rankings “provide no insight into the many variables that mold the crime in a particular town, city, county, state, region or other jurisdiction.”
It also said the list isn’t an accurate predictor of a person’s crime risk because it doesn’t take into consideration factors such as age, lifestyle and the neighborhood were a person lives.
Jeff Shuttleworth, Bay City News
Want more news, sent to your inbox every day? Then how about subscribing to our email newsletter? Here’s why we think you should. Come on, give it a try.
