According to Morgan Quitno Press, via CNN, there are only four cities in America more dangerous than the one I live in. To prove it, they produced this list.
My old staggering ground, the city of Balmur Merlin, is #6.
NOLA is placed at #8, but there's no indication if Katrina is a factor.
Chicago is not even on it.
I wonder how they came up with these rankings?
Where's the Windy City?
And who the fuck is Morgan Quitno?
The answers weren't very hard to find. Here's the methodology , along with a bizarre sidebar that begins with this:
Morgan QuitnoÂ’s annual rankings of crime in states, metro areas and cities are considered by some in the law enforcement community as controversial.
They are? Why? No shit?
Is this a disclaimer of some sort? The list relies solely on crime report data released by the FBI on six basic crime categories- murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft.
I wonder if this is the same FBI that apparently only has 200 computers powerful enough to run Windows? Did you know that there is a lack of Web connections at many FBI field offices ?
Personally, I'm glad to hear that last bit- I wish the government would stay the fuck away from the internet-but I can see how the lack of internet access could hinder legitimate operations- such as gathering crime statistics.
Well... of this list I'm quickly becoming skeptical, to say the least. And Chicago? This explains it's absence :
"Chicago and Other Illinois Cities: ...Submittedd by cities in the state of Illinois have not met the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) guidelines... According to state statisticians, the state of Illinois tracks "sexual assault," which includes not only female rapes, but also offenses such as male rape, sodomy, etc. For these reasons, Chicago and other Illinois cities once again are not found in this year's Safest City rankings...In the past, our award has received criticism because it omits Chicago in its rankings. While we understand this concern, it is our view that it is more important that rape be considered an important crime and kept in our methodology..."
This is just plain odd. Are they saying that "male rape" is less significant,statistically or otherwise, than "female rape"? It implies that "male rape" was not counted as a crime in the rankable cities. Does the presence of non-violent "sodomy" arrests skew the stats for the Quitno list?
Strange. I didn't know Chicago enforced sodomy laws in consensual cases(ask Jack Ryan) There shouldn't be many, if any , "sodomy" busts.
Says the University of Illinois:
"According to Illinois law, sex crimes involve the use of force or threat of force to sexually touch or sexually penetrate the victim’s body or forcing the victim to touch or penetrate the offender’s body. "
So a sodomy arrest in Illinois is a forcible sodomy arrest, which is really a way to say raped in a non- biologically reproductive manner. It's still rape and should be counted as such, but the Quitno folks seem to think that only "traditional" rape- between a man and a woman- lowers the local standard of living. Who are these Quitno fuckers anyway?
Not surprisingly, the people who rank the safety of our metropolitan areas are from freaking
Kansas.
What they do is collect information that is already free and in the public domain, repackage it and sell it for a profit. This is not inherently a bad thing- it's a useful service after all- but it is a for-profit company whose reason for releasing spurious "Safety Rankings" lists is clear: Promotion of the company's products.
Still, my beef isn't with Quitno- it's with CNN and every other MSM outlet that presents this sketchy list as "news" without bothering to check the background of the source. Or maybe they did, and just don't care. Wouldn't surprise me. (Check sources? That's sounds too much like journalism)
So thanks a lot, CNN. Now my grandmother is freaked out because her grandson (to her, I will always be 8-yrs old) lives in one of the most dangerous places in America. She'll probably call every night to see if I'm OK.
No comments:
Post a Comment