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BY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Camden has been overtaken by St. Louis as the most dangerous city in the nation in 2009, according to a new national study.
The study by CQ Press found St. Louis had 2,070.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, compared with a national average of 429.4. That helped St. Louis beat out Camden, which topped last year's list and was the most dangerous city for 2003 and 2004.
Detroit, Flint, Mich., and Oakland, Calif., rounded out the top five.
Greg Scarbro, unit chief of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, said the FBI also discourages using the data for these types of rankings.
According to an Associated Press report in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Kara Bowlin, spokeswoman for St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, said crime in St. Louis has gone down each year since 2007, and so far in 2010, St. Louis crime is down 7 percent.
Erica Van Ross, spokeswoman for the St. Louis Police Department, called the rankings irresponsible.
"Crime is based on a variety of factors. It's based on geography, it's based on poverty, it's based on the economy," Van Ross said.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Newark made the list at number 23, moving up from number 29 last year.
According to NJ.com, the annual rankings are based on population figures and crime data compiled by the FBI. Some criminologists question the findings, saying the methodology is unfair.
