By Cole Lauterbach/Illinois Radio Network
CHICAGO – New FBI data show that you are more likely to be a victim of violent crime in five Illinois cities other than Chicago.
The latest FBI statistics on violent crime in the U.S. show that East St. Louis, Rockford, Danville, Harvey and Springfield all had higher rates of violent crimes per capita than Chicago in 2015. Law Street Media Editor Kevin Rizzo compiles the numbers every year. He said the ratio of crime compared with the total population provides a better look at how dangerous towns are.
“Since Chicago is such a large city, it has a lot of violent crimes, particularly murders in terms of the raw numbers, but there are other cities that, adjusted for population, show that they have a higher proportion of violent crime relative to the actual population of the city,” Rizzo said.
Rizzo said the 2016 numbers might be different since there already have been more than 700 murders in Chicago, up from nearly 500 total last year. Rizzo also said the rates of crime are a good way to compare similarly sized cities, but Chicago is so large that it may misrepresent dangerous areas of the sprawling city in comparison to East St. Louis, with only 26,000 people.
“I don’t know that it’s necessarily fair to compare Chicago to East St. Louis or something like that because the populations are just so wildly different, and the situations on the ground are different,” Rizzo said.
The State of Illinois ranked 21st in violent crimes per capita, with Alaska at No. 1.
Bloomington comes in at 21st on the list while Normal is 30th.
48 of the 84 Illinois cities studied had no murders in 2015, including Danville, which was one of the most violent. The least violent towns above 25,000 people are the northern Chicago suburbs of Buffalo Grove, Huntley, Wilmette, Elmhurst, and Northbrook.
