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Brick Again Ranks Among Safest Cities
By Catherine Galioto
Brick Township continues to rank among the top 10 safest cities, as the approximately 80,000-resident strong township is third safest on a list of 378 American cities.
"City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America" published by CQ Press, a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc., put Brick third based on FBI crime statistics from 2006.
Ranking as the safest city is Mission Viejo, California, then Clarkstown, NY.
Last year, Brick was ranked first. It was ranked fifth in 2005 and second in 2004 and 2003.
Locally, Toms River ranked ninth safest, up from No. 14 the year prior.
The report ranks the flip side, listing the most dangerous cities, too. Detroit was ranked most dangerous, according to the report. Camden ranked as the nation's fifth most dangerous city, behind St. Louis, Flint, MI, and Oakland, CA.
To determine the rankings, CQ Press took 2006 city and metro area crime rates per 100,000 population for six basic crime categories - murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft.
Each city was compared against a national average determined for a given crime category. These scores were ranked from lowest to highest to determine which cities and metropolitan areas were safest and most dangerous.
All cities of 75,000 people or more that reported data for the six categories of crime measured for the survey were included in the competition. In previous years, the population cut-off for cities was 100,000-plus people.
Critics of the rankings say the cities that make the list as safest are in a very different class than large scale cities and that places like Brick are incomparable to cities with one million-plus residents.
The FBI released a statement of its own criticizing of the rankings.
"These rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state or region," the FBI said. "Consequently, they lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions, adversely affecting communities and their residents."
In a prepared statement, CQ Press addressed these criticisms, saying, "To be sure, crime-ranking information must be considered carefully. However, the rankings tell not only an interesting but also very important story regarding the incidence of crime in the United States."
The annual rankings allow for comparisons among different states and cities, according to CQ Press, but since the rankings happen each year, they provide a tool for communities to track their crime trends.
While there may be no place to go but down when you are ranked first, officials in Brick point to recent events they said are worth more focus than how the township ranks. Incidents such as crime in Laurelton Mobile Home Park are regularly brought up at township council meetings, and fights at a local club and vandalism were also recently on the council's agenda.
Still, in the last decade, Brick Police grew from 80 officers to more than 125, and the police force will receive an upgrade to its communication system in a project scheduled to end in 2009.
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