Random Factoid: Baltimore Crime

The MobTown Shank is working with Eight-Stone Press on a new issue of their award-winning Smile, Hon, You're In Baltimore series of zines. This new issue will focus on crime stories. In preparation, I spent some time digging around and researching Baltimore City crime statistics to include in the zine.

Not surprisingly, you can't just go to the Baltimore City Police Department's website and find a list of comprehensive and up-to-date crime stats (the most recent .pdf I found including crime stats there was from 2005).

We should also acknowledge that during the last election cycle, when then-Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley was trying to oust then-Governor (now right wing talk-radio show host) Bobby Ehrlich, the reporting of crime statistics in Baltimore became highly politicized.

We are merely listing what was reported in various places as there doesn't even seem to be an easy, unbiased (or agenda-free), online overview (at least for Baltimore City. Baltimore County's police department, on the other hand, provides a wealth of info for their area) of statistics.

Reported Murders In Baltimore City
1999: 305
2000: 261
2001: 256
2002: 253
2003: 270
2004: 276
2005: 269
2006: 276*

(*update - was revised up to 276 from 275 in June 2007)

Reported Forcible Rapes In Baltimore City
1999: 374
2003: 204
2004: 182
2005: 162

Reported Robberies In Baltimore City
1999: 7,437
2003: 4,339
2004: 4,050
2005: 3,910

Reported Aggravated Assaults  In Baltimore City
1999: 10,521
2003: 6,370
2004: 7,159
2005: 6,907

Reported Burglaries  In Baltimore City
1999: 12,312
2003: 7,789
2004: 7,981
2005: 7,338

Reported Larcenies  In Baltimore City
1999: 36,742
2003: 22,824
2004: 21,366
2005: 19,691

Stolen Autos Reported  In Baltimore City
1999: 7,234
2003: 6,857
2004: 6,712
2005: 6,212

Total Reported Crimes  In Baltimore City
1999: 74,925
2003: 48,653
2004: 47,726
2005: 44,489

Police Force Size in 2005: 3,906  members
Police Budget in 2005: $290,993,062

So according to the Baltimore City Police Department, crime is down in Baltimore City from 1999 - 2005 by 40.6%

In 2003: Baltimore was
5.48 times above the national average for MURDER
3.08 times above the national average for ROBBERY
2.73 times above the national average for AGGRAVATED ASSAULT
0.87 below the national average for FORCIBLE RAPE
2.90 times above the national average for ALL VIOLENT CRIME

1.42 times above the national average for BURGLARY
1.19 times above the national average for LARCENY OR THEFT
1.77 times above the national average for CAR THEFT
2.54 times above the national average for ARSON
1.32 times above the national average for ALL PROPERTY CRIMES

Baltimore is ranked as the 12th most dangerous city in the U.S. in 2007.
-Source: CNN/Morgan Quinto

Baltimore is the 2nd most dangerous city in the U.S. with a population over 500,00 in 2007.
Detroit beat us. Bastards.
-Source: CNN/Morgan Quinto

Out of the roughly 100,000 arrests made in Baltimore each year, approximately 25% of them are made in the absence of chargeable offenses.
-Source: Washington Post

Baltimore City & Prince George's County account for over 75% of all Maryland murders over the past 2 decades.
-Source: Capital News Service

From 1985 - 2006 there were 11,375 murders reported in Maryland.
-Source: Capital News Service

Comments

[Sutton]

Benn,
Before someone writes in to bitch that you are talking numbers, not rates (a legitimate criticism, since a big crime decrease wouldn't be all that impressive if there had been an even bigger population decrease), I just located population figures for 2000 (closest I could find) and 2005: 651,154 and 643,000 respectively. Between the resulting rates, the change only shrinks a little bit, from your -40.6%to -39.9%, 2000-2005.

Yeah, I'm bored.

[Sutton]

...and I guess even that might be accounted for since I was using 2000's and not 1999's population figure...

I'll just shut up now and get back to work.

[Christen]

Have you seen these sites yet?

Map of Homicides for 2007

And this will create a map of crimes in the last 90 days in a particular area. It will cover up to 1/2 mile radius and 14-day time span.

I was mugged at the end of March in front of the Monument at Charles and Monument.

That was fun.

[Mobtown Shank]

Christen: Yep. I was actually playing around on the crime map yesterday.

Thanks for the links.

Sorry to hear you were mugged.

Dude tried to mug me at gun point a few years back on Read St. when I lived in Mount Vernon.

I was in a bad mood and told him to shoot me.

His mugging was unsuccessful. And I was not shot.