Rootless Relocation, Part 5: The Crime Factor

Old Missouri State Penitentiary, Art in the Park, 2008

When I was doing research for where in New Mexico I want to live, opinion-holders in various venues spoke of New Mexico's high crime rate. Normally, the crime rate of a destination doesn't figure in to my calculations, but I saw so many references to it, I thought I'd check it out.

My observation is that sometimes folks make pronouncements on crime rates based on perception rather than reality. For example, for awhile there a year or so ago, people were rabid about how illegal immigrants are a major source of crime, which belied the fact that illegal immigrants are more law-abiding as a group than legal U.S. residents. Arizona, a flashpoint on illegal immigrants, has a lower crime rate than Missouri, which has significantly fewer illegal immigrants.

Years ago, I had a Spanish professor from Chile. He grew up in Chile during tumultuous years of military rule and the overthrow of the democratically-elected Salvador Allende. But when he traveled from Chile to New York City, his mother feared for his life because it was so dangerous in America!  

Anyhoo, let's take a look at how New Mexico crime figures compare with Missouri and the U.S. as a whole, using different angles.

Old Missouri State Penitentiary, Prison Jesus, Art in the Park, 2008

The Institute of Economics and Peace

From its website: The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) is a non-profit research organization dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress.

It achieves its goals by developing new conceptual frameworks to define peacefulness; providing metrics for measurement; uncovering the relationship between peace, business and prosperity, and by promoting a better understanding of the cultural, economic and political factors that drive peacefulness.

To evaluate each state's level of peacefulness, IEP looks at five measures:

1. Number of homicides per 100,00 people (from FBI)
2. Number of violent crimes per 100,000 people (from FBI) 
3. Incarceration rate per 100,000 people (from U.S. Bureau of Justice)
4. Number of police employees per 100,000 people (from FBI)
5. Availability of small arms (extrapolated from CDC, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and Fatal Injury Reports)

IEP doesn't weight the above equally. Number of homicides and violent crime are each weighted as the most important indicators at 4. Incarceration and police employees are each weighted at 3. Access to small arms is weighted the lowest of indicators at 1.

According to the 2012 United States Peace Index Report: 

• New Mexico is the 34th most peaceful state
• Missouri is the 45th most peaceful state

Old Missouri State Penitentiary, Art in the Park, 2008

FBI statistics

FBI stats here
U.S. totals are in Table 1 on right sidebar.
State-by-state totals in Table 5 on right sidebar.

Violent crimes per 100,000 people (includes murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery)

• New Mexico: 588.9
• Missouri: 455
• U.S. total: 403.6

Property crime per 100,000 people (includes burglary, larceny/theft, auto theft)

• New Mexico: 3435.4
• Missouri: 3346.4
• U.S. total: 2941.9

So looking at the above two indicators alone, New Mexico has significantly more violent crime (mostly due to its higher numbers of aggravated assault and rape) and 2% more property crime than Missouri.

Both New Mexico and Missouri's rates exceed the U.S. total rates.

Old Missouri State Penitentiary, Art in the Park, 2008

Istanbul: I Paid a Bribe or, The Girl From Milan

Well, no, I didn't.

But while in Istanbul, I ran into an Italian girl from Milan. Our conversation reminded me of this website, I Paid A Bribe, which I first read about in the New York Times some months back.

Which reminded me of the economic situation in Greece, not unconnected with corruption there, which there is no political will to rectify. And makes me think of Phil in the Blank's post here about Mali.

Which contrasts with the story of Georgia in 2003.

So according to the Milanese girl, average Italian wages per month are roughly 1580 euros (confirmed here), while the average monthly earnings of the Italian lawmakers are more than $20,000 USD. Yup, per month.

The girl from Milan also said there were 665 lawmakers (though this article reports about 1000). This is for a population of 60 million. In contrast, the U.S. has 535 legislators for its population of 310 million. 

On top of this, Italy still requires its citizens to go hither and thither - physically - to get this or that stamped or fee paid or otherwise handled by government employees to get the simplest tasks done, such as license renewals or tax paying. Compare this to Georgia's current online system for many functions, operating not only from the desire for efficiency but in the belief that the fewer humans who touch an item, the fewer chances there are for corruption.

The Milanese girl told me about her two trips to the U.S. - one to New York and one, some years ago, on a family RV trip to some of America's national parks in the west.

She was so surprised at the differences between New York City and Milan. The rush, rush, rush! Work, work, work! The rudeness! The abruptness! The difficulty in meeting people.

Yes, she said, Milan could learn many lessons from the New Yorkers who were so kind and helpful to her when she was a tourist there. She can't wait to go back some day.