“Ballwin Named the 9th Safest City in America,” February 13, 2014, Riverfront Times
This article discusses the release of FBI crime data that
ranks the city of Ballwin as the 9th safest in the country. The article includes several quotes by
Ballwin’s police department, which pointed out the city’s own dispatch center
as critical in their success at keeping crime down in addition to a generally
positive relationship with the community.
Comments on the article pointed to wealth and race as the significant
factors here. The article itself is brief but, in my opinion, stood out as
really important to us as a community class in the St. Louis metro area.
St. Louis’s reputation, whether accurate or not, often centers
around crime issues. Certain areas
within the city are more defined by these issues, and it seems every few months
I see another attempt to put an exact number on the prevalence of crime. Two questions I have been considering
are how accurate our information is and what these labels do to St. Louis
neighborhoods and the metro area in general.
Several weeks ago, the Riverfront Times published another
article (http://blogs.riverfronttimes.
Another article to throw into this idea discusses the Police
Department’s “crime index” and the idea of “crime-ridden” neighborhoods within
St. Louis. The article goes into
detail about the misleading aspects of these statistics, and I recommend
glancing over it and the follow-up article (http://nextstl.com/2012/08/
While this data can be helpful in understanding
needs and
assets in our community, I think attempts to label parts of St. Louis as
“safe”
and others as “crime-ridden” should be accompanied by extreme caution.
What do our numbers actually say? What are the real reasons behind
concentrations of crime? Is it
appropriate for social workers to peg some neighborhoods as
“crime-ridden?”
I agree Jennifer! I think crime is a combination of factors but specifically instead of being because of race it usually does have more to do with areas that have economic issues. I took a poverty class in undergrad that was really interesting and one of the things that came up often when discussing crime was a correlation with low income areas. People who have a hard time meeting their basic needs like feeling safe, having enough food, etc. are more likely to turn to crime to meet those needs and therefore that correlation is often seen in areas of economic crisis.
ReplyDeleteI used to live in Ballwin, MO...we just sold our house last May to move into the city. Our house sold after being on the market for 3 days. People thought we were crazy for moving out of such a "safe and secure" and honestly white neighborhood and area to move into the city. My husband and I found the lack of diversity a huge problem for us. Poverty and crime statistics are tied together but also so is race which is unfortunately due to racism and oppression. I'd be interested to see how the correlation between how crime statistics were reported before the "white flight" in the city and now. The suburbs being deemed "safe" while the city getting deemed "dangerous". I feel media today even propels this idea...I watch the morning local news and it focuses on the night's shootings in the city or other crimes while the only news from the county is typically how bad the morning commute into the city is.
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