Scarier

On a lark, I decided to finally compare New Orleans' murder rate with those of other places. I'm assuming New Orleans (proper) has 450,000 people. This is a slight overestimation by most accounts that are credible. There have been 209 murders this year (so far). That equates to a murder rate of 46.4 per 100,000. Murder rates are used to approximate overall crime because they can't be easily downgraded or classified as something else, as the NOPD has a storied history of doing.

Anyway, here's are some cities with which to compare New Orleans. I used 2006 FBI data and I imagine the crime rates of most major cities haven't had significant reason to drop or increase dramatically...at least in a year's time.

New York City - 13.6
Chicago - 16.4
Camden, NJ - 40
Newark, NJ - 37.5
Gary, IN - 48
Detroit, MI - 47.5
Los Angles, CA - 12.4
Houston, TX - 18.2
Washington, DC - 29.1
Baltimore, MD - 43.8 (Take THAT The Wire!)
Philadelphia, PA - 27.8

Of cities similar in size to New Orleans:

Atlanta, GA - 22.9
Fresno, CA - 11.8
Cleveland, OH - 16.6
Kansas City, MO - 25
Omaha, NE - 8
Oakland, CA - 36.4
Baton Rouge - 27.1 (assuming 210,000 2006 population)

Watch out Detroit! We've got your number!

Think about this: According to the NOPD, you don't have to worry about getting murdered if your'e not a young, black, drug-dealing male. What do you think the overall population of those are in Orleans Parish? Certainly not all 450,000 of us, as I know that Kayla and I don't match that description (I'm not black..ha ha). So, half? That brings the rate up to over 90. A quarter? 180? What's the murder rate per capita in Baghdad? No, really. What is it? I can't find anything that's not from newsmax or Fox News.

You'd think instead of the bitching about public housing (where, incidentally there are over 500 properties (PDF) currently available for section 8 tenants), we'd be focused on this.

Anyway, back to work.