Compare Crime Statistics Using This Site
The National Association of Realtors offers a free "Relocation Crime Lab" where visitors can compare crime statistics between two cities. This tool can help give you a quick overview of the occurrences of selected crimes in particular cities, but for more precise numbers, and raw data regarding criminal statistics, the best source remains the FBI's Uniform Crime Report.
Users can select the two cities for which they are interested in comparing crime statistics, from a pre-determined list. The returned results offer a general comparative index of crime in each of the two cities selected, based largely on 2001 crime data reported by various law enforcement agencies in each state. (The site notes that the latest data available from New Hampshire, however, is for 1996.) The index is based on a weighted average of the relative frequency of crimes per capita in five caegories:
- homicide
- robbery
- rape
- aggravated assault
- motor vehicle theft
A comparison of the crime rates in Culver City, CA and the New York City burough of Queens (the site offers separate data for each of New York City's five buroughs) revealed that while Culver City's crime rate in 2001 was slightly below the national average (index of 98) Queens' index of 133 was slightly above the national average.
An index of 100 represents the national average of per capita crime incidents in the five categories mentioned above. The returned results also included numbers of crimes in each of the five categories (although, for the sake of comparison, the numbers have "been adjusted to yield a rate per 100,000 people.")
The site also offers the following caveat: "With data of this sort (not always reported accurately or uniformly), it is important not to overstate small differences. In comparing two cities with low crime rates (less than 50 in our index), differences of less than 20 points probably are not significant. In comparing two cities with high crime rates (over 200 in our index), differences of less than 50 points probably are not significant."
For more information onregarding criminal records online, see: