FBI Crime Stats for 2006

The FBI has released its latest Unified Crime Report for 2006. Surely this report will demonstrate how religion has influenced society for the better. The report must show that the Bible Thumping South is a land of peace and tranquility while the atheistic, secular Northeast wallows in crime and depravity.

Let’s look at the numbers shall we? My, my, there must be something wrong here. This report says that the HIGHEST violent crime rate is in the Christian South at 547.5 incidents per 100,000 population while the lowest is in the secular Northeast at 391.9 incidents per 100,000 population. My, my, how can this be?

Actually, there’s no surprise here. These results are consistent with past FBI reports as well as consistent with other studies that indicate that the more religious a society is, the more dysfunctional it tends to be.

An article in the “Journal of Religion and Society” entitled “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look” published last year states:

“Abundant data is available on rates of societal dysfunction and health in the first world. Cross-national comparisons of highly differing rates of religiosity and societal conditions form a mass epidemiological experiment that can be used to test whether high rates of belief in and worship of a creator are necessary for high levels of social health. Data correlations show that in almost all regards the highly secular democracies consistently enjoy low rates of societal dysfunction, while pro-religious and anti-evolution America performs poorly.”

Now whether that’s a direct result of religion, an outgrowth of the fact that both religiosity and crime tend to be associated with less educated or lower intelligence populations or that the United States just tends to be more dysfunctional than other democracies for other reasons totally unrelated to religion is unclear. I mean, you have to be pretty damned dysfunctional to elect George W. Bush, not once, BUT TWICE!

Anyway, back to the crime report. As stated earlier the South had the highest violent crime rate at 547.5, the West was next at 473.5, followed by the Midwest at 419.1 and the Northeast had the lowest violent crime rate at 391.9.

Nationally the violent crime rate went up by about 1% from 469.0 in 2005 to 473.5 in 2006. The rate also increased in the South, the West and the Midwest with the West having the highest increase at about 1.5%. The violent crime rate in the Northeast actually went down by 0.5%.

The South, despite having by far the highest execution rate in the country, also had the highest murder rate at 6.8; the West was next at 5.6, followed by the Midwest at 5.0. The Northeast had the lowest murder rate at 4.5.

Nationally the murder rate went up by 0.8% from 5.6 to 5.7. It also went up in all regions of the country except the West where it went down 2.2% from 5.8 to 5.6. The South had the highest increase in murder rate. It increased by 2.1% in the South from 6.6 to 6.8.

As far as individual states are concerned, South Carolina had the highest violent crime rate at 765.5, followed by Tennessee at 760.2 and Nevada at 741.6. The state with the lowest violent crime rate was Maine at 115.5, followed by North Dakota at 127.9 and Vermont at 136.6.

Louisiana had the highest murder rate at a whopping 12.4. Maryland was next at 9.7 followed by Nevada at 9.0. The state with the lowest murder rate was New Hampshire at 1.0, followed by South Dakota at 1.2 and North Dakota at 1.3.

Don’t believe everything you see on TV or in the movies. New York was ranked 21st in violent crime with a rate of 441.6 and 26th in murder rate with a rate of 4.9. California was ranked 14th in violent crime with a rate of 532.5 and 12th in murder rate with a rate of 6.8. Texas, despite 405 executions since 1976, was still ranked 18th in murder rate with a rate of 5.9. New Jersey, home of the Sopranos, was ranked 26th in violent crime with a rate of 351.6 and 24th in murder rate with a rate of 4.9.

New York City, demonized from many a pulpit as a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah sunk in sin, crime and depravity, had a violent crime rate of 637.9 and a murder rate of 7.2. Nine states including South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana and Florida, had violent crime rates higher than New York City. Eight states, including Louisiana, Maryland, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas had higher murder rates than New York City.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, was a bit worse. Its violent crime rate was 786.9 and its murder rate was 12.3.

Of course both New York and Los Angeles are the Garden of Eden when compared to Detroit which had a violent crime rate of 2,420.1 and a murder rate of 47.2.

In terms of property crime, the South was again the worst region with a rate of 3,780.8 property crime incidents per 100,000 population. The West was next with a rate of 3,534.4, followed by the Midwest with a rate of 3,271.2. The Northeast had the least property crime with a rate of 2,268.6.

The worst state in property crime rate was Arizona with a rate of 4,627.9, followed by Washington with a rate of 4,480.0 and then South Carolina with a rate of 4,242.3. Remind me to stay FAR away from South Carolina.

The state with the least property crime was South Dakota with a rate of 1,619.6, followed by New Hampshire with a rate of 1,874.1 and then North Dakota with a rate of 2,000.3.

The state in which you were most likely to get your car ripped off was Nevada with a motor vehicle theft rate of 1,080.4, followed by Arizona with a rate of 889.5 and then Washington with a rate of 717.6. The state where your car was the safest was South Dakota with a rate of 91.8, followed by Vermont with a rate of 93.9 and then Maine with a rate of 101.4.

Oh well, another year and another round of crime stats from the bureau. The South, despite its supposed focus on “moral values” continues to lead the country in murder and violent crime as well as executions. Must be all that not believing in evolution that’s causing the trouble.