Good News – Bad News
The FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2006 has been released and there’s some good news and some bad news.
If you live in Edmond, Broken Arrow or Norman the news is good as those cities had the fewest violent crimes in 2006 of any Oklahoma city with a population above 19,000.
The new is bad if you live in Tulsa, Lawton or Oklahoma City as those cities had the most violent crimes in 2006.
Rounded off the numbers are as follows:
Edmond – 1.2 violent crimes per 1,000 of population
Broken Arrow – 2.0 violent crimes per 1000 of population.
Norman – 2.0 violent crimes per 1000 of population.
On the other side of the coin, the bad news is:
Tulsa – Almost 12.5 violent crimes per 1,000 of population
Lawton – Over 10.2 violent crimes per 1,000 of population
Oklahoma City – Just over 8 violent crimes per 1,000 of population.
While the good numbers are very good, the bad numbers are very bad, especially that of Tulsa which has become the violent crime capitol of Oklahoma.
Tulsa’s violent crime rate is equal to 1.25% of its population.
This means that over 1 in a hundred Tulsans are victims of VIOLENT crime, not just crime per-se, but violent crime, crime of the worst kind such as assault, rape and murder.
And some Tulsans are lamenting the lack of river development?
Gimme’ a break.
River development does not mean anything to the crime victim floating face down in the river and unless/until Tulsa gets a handle on reducing its horrible violent crime rate there are likely going to be several more of those.
What so called “urban professional” is going to want to move to a city or what company is going to want to locate in a city where 1.25 percent of the population are victims of violent crime?
Answer – few, damned few.
Between Tulsa’s horrible crime rate and lousy streets there is plenty to be done before we even start to think about river development and similar “look good/feel good projects”, none of which do you any good if you end up a victim of violent crime.
As do far too many Tulsans…
