For the second time this year, Douglas has been named in an independent study as one of Georgia’s most dangerous cities. Movoto Real Estate Company published their findings last week, naming Douglas as the state’s seventh most crime-ridden community.
Here’s what they had to say:
“Out of all 72 places we looked at, Douglas had among the top 20 most murders per capita—and that’s the good news. It also had the seventh most violent crimes in general, and the third most property crimes per capita. Of those property crimes, a vast majority were thefts; however there were also 42 robberies and 18 rapes that year. All told, Douglas had the third most total crimes per capita, giving residents pretty good chances of being the victim of one of those crimes—1 in 10.”
As with a similar report published by internet-based security system marketing company Homesecurityshield.org in October, Movoto states the report’s findings were based on the FBI’s 2012 uniform crime report.
In describing their methodology, Movoto stated,”We started by gathering a list of all the places in Georgia with populations of 10,000 people or more. We then used the 2012 FBI Uniform Crime Report to look at each locale according to the following criteria:
Murder
Rape
Robbery
Assault
Burglary
Theft
Vehicle theft
We then divided these crimes into four different categories:
Murders
Violent crimes
Property crimes
Total crimes
After we got rid of any places in the state that didn’t report data to the bureau that year (these things happen), we were left with a total of 72 places. We then calculated the number of crimes per capita (or per person) in each of our categories, in order to fairly compare Georgia cities of all sizes.
Next, we weighted murders, violent crimes, and property crimes so that they each comprised 30 percent of the overall score, and the total number of crimes comprised 10 percent. For the final step, we averaged each city’s rankings into one overall Big Deal Score, where the lowest scores were our most dangerous places.”
Similar methodolgy used in Homesecurityshield.org’s October report drew criticism from local law enforcement officials who said using the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report was not an accurate way to compare actual crime in various cities because not all departments report these statistics to the FBI.
The FBI also warns of over-simplifying and interpreting statistics compiled in the Uniform Crime Report on their website stating, “Each year when crime in the United States is published, many entities—news media, tourism agencies, and other groups with an interest in crime in our nation—use reported figures to compile rankings of cities and counties. These rankings, however, are merely a quick choice made by the data user; they provide no insight into the many variables that mold the crime in a particular town, city, county, state, 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 view the report compiled by Movoto, click here.