Right-wingers love building false narratives that seem to suggest ALL large cities are bastions of violent crime. And while places like Baltimore and St. Louis certainly have their fair share of problems, crime in cities like Chicago and New York City is often very exaggerated.
For example, Fox News will create a headline reading, “20 shot in bloody Chicago weekend.”
* Newsflash Readers*
There are at least 3 million people in Chicago at any given time (when tourists and visiting suburbanites are included). So yeah, in the above-referenced weekend, 1 of every 150,000 people in Chicago was shot.
And most (albeit not all) of those victims were more than likely up to no good, or hanging with suspect people in a shady part of town.
While Chicago’s crime rate is certainly nothing to be proud of, the city isn’t nearly as dangerous as its reputation suggests. Nevertheless, people are so captivated by the headline, they fail to consider the high population.
Chicago isn’t a “war zone” but there’s a place in Ohio that might fit that description.
Enter U.S. Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH).
Rep. Jordan has alleged that the Manhattan District Attorney is prioritizing prosecuting former President Donald Trump over addressing the increasingly high crime in NYC.
Really?
Upon further review, Jordan’s congressional district in Ohio has a higher crime rate than that of Manhattan. In fact, it has been given the nickname “Danger City” due to its main city Mansfield, according to a Washington Post report.
“New York is a big city — Manhattan alone has 1.6 million people — and horrific crimes can happen there … But because New York is such a large city, crime numbers can be taken out of context,” the Post reported.
“The best way to assess the incidence of crime is to adjust the numbers to take into account the size of the population. Jordan represents a rural district in Ohio, and its biggest city is Mansfield, located midway between Columbus and Cleveland.”
“The population there is below 50,000. But when crime numbers are adjusted for population, in many cases Mansfield does not fare well in comparison to Manhattan. That could be one reason, according to the sister city website, it has the nickname ‘Danger City’ in addition to its official nickname of ‘The Fun Center of Ohio.'”
Under neighborhoodscout.com, which scores crime indices from 100 being the best to 0 being the worst, Manhattan is a 15 — but Mansfield is a 6.
“With a crime rate of 37 per one thousand residents, Mansfield has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes — from the smallest towns to the very largest cities,” said the site. CrimeGrade.org listed the New York City area as a D+ — but Mansfield a D.
Need another source?
USA.com calculates the crime index based on the data using their algorithms. It is an indicator of the crime level in a region. A higher crime index value means more crime. Mansfield’s score is 2,888 while New York City’s is 1,405.
It’s also noted that while crime rates in NYC have gone up in comparison to 2020, five out of seven categories of serious offenses are lower than this point in 2022 – when Mayor Bragg’s tenure began.