Live in Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, or Youngstown? Kudos to you, brave soul, because statistics show those cities are more dangerous than towns on the U.S. Mexican border, locations fraught with — we’re guessing here — gangs, smuggling, drugs, and tequila-induced streaks of violence.
That startling fact emerged after U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso took Ohio’s own John Boehner to task after the Speaker said securing our border should be priority numero uno and an important step in stopping violence in America. Silvestre responded in a press release that Boehner “should focus on controlling the level of violence in his own state before tarnishing the image of border communities that remain among the safest places to live in America. … The fact remains that the six largest cities in Ohio all have higher rates of violence and crime than every major city along the U.S.-Mexico border.”
PolitiFact checked the numbers on Silvestre’s seemingly outrageous claim.
This article appears in May 11-17, 2011.
HAHA Border communities don’t report many of the crimes… Snithces get stitches. This is not a fair research
Hmmm… Where is all this crime when I’m in Cleveland?
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The problem with this statistic (aside from the points mentioned prior) is the same problem that occurs in ALL of the crime ranking reports: simply said, Midwestern industrial cities are not arranged in the same manner, as, say, San Diego. What does this mean? Most southern and western cities are not parceled out into central city and 50 other individual suburbs with individual crime rankings. Many encompass borders that are either an entire county in area or large swaths of area that would be considered exurban if it were in the Midwest. This is why Cleveland (et al) typically “wins” the crime rate/poverty game; it doesn’t have the benefit of having Solon and Strongsville and Rocky River included within its city limits (etc.). If Cleveland were, say, Charlotte – Strongsville would also be Charlotte; Solon would be Charlotte proper; and, you guessed it, Rocky River would also be in Charlotte proper. A better across-the-board assessment of crime/poverty would be to look at metro or county figures. What if we drew a border around central Charlotte, or San Diego, or Phoenix, or whatever? What would their stats look like then? Would Cleveland still rank as high in crime/poverty? I can assure you things (such as this article) would look a bit different.