When I read the survey results that listed Lufkin as 3rd most dangerous city in Texas I questioned the validity. This article explains it pretty well. Officials decry alarm company’s report on ‘dangerous’ Texas cities Story Posted: Sunday, September 14, 2014 12:30 am By JESSICA COOLEY/The Lufkin News In the wake of an alarm company survey portraying Lufkin as the third most dangerous city in the state, city officials are asking residents to consider the source. “It is very telling that an alarm sales company is the source of these articles — instill fear with the goal of selling their product is a strong motivation,” said Crime Stoppers of Lufkin Director JB Smith, a Lufkin Police detective. Homesecurityshield claims to have complied its list of the “Top 20 Most Dangerous Cities in Texas” from the FBI’s uniform crime data. The survey comes with the following disclaimer: “We realize that this topic is inherently controversial in nature and hits close to home. We are aware that there are many different ways to present this data, but when compiling this list we chose to consider not just murder rate, but both violent and property crimes.” The survey ranks Lufkin, which had four murders in 2013, as being more dangerous than Houston (214 murders), Dallas (137 murders) and San Antonio (73 murders). Smith said he thinks the company used a “simplistic and flawed” method in “fabricating” its list, as it included not only violent crimes (rape, robbery, murder and aggravated assault) but also property crimes (theft, vandalism and burglary). “Many cities do not provide the same level of service (as Lufkin), announcing to the citizens that police officers will not respond to minor property crimes and vehicle crashes not resulting in injury,” Smith said. “Accordingly, their statistics reflect a lower number of reported crimes. We encourage citizens to report every violation and suspicious behavior, no matter how minor, because we know that a neighbor leaving their trash can out on the curb past the allotted time can impact the quality of life for one citizen as much as the fear of crime can for another.” Lufkin Mayor Bob Brown said it is disheartening to see the “survey” spread on Facebook without citizens stopping to consider the information. “It’s a knee-jerk type deal,” he said. “You do hate that in this instantaneous media world we live in, unless you drill down, you can get depressed about a lot of things. You never want your city to be singled out in something like this, but if you drill, you see it is a little facetious.” The FBI also cautions against drawing conclusions based on numbers alone. “Each year when Crime in the United States is published, many entities — news media, tourism agencies, and other groups with an interest in crime in our nation — use reported figures to compile rankings of cities and counties,” the FBI stated on its website. “These rankings, however, are merely a quick choice made by the data user; they provide no insight into the many variables that mold the crime in a particular town, city, county, state, region, or other jurisdiction.” Jessica Cooley’s email address is jcooley@lufkindailynews.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 20:03:20 +0000
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