Study: San Bernardino Is California's Most Dangerous City
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — San Bernardino has won the ignominious distinction of being named California's most dangerous city, according to recent report.
The report, released by criminal defense attorney Graham Donath, was based on FBI data that takes into account crime rates, police presence, and other community factors including poverty and education rates.
Stockton was declared the state's second most dangerous city, with Modesto placing third. Two other cities commonly associated with crime -- Oakland and Inglewood -- placed sixth and tenth, respectively. Los Angeles ranked nineteenth.
The study only takes into account cities with a population of 100,000 or more people.
The study found an especially high correlation between crime rates and poverty. San Bernardino, which was hard-hit by the housing crisis, has the highest poverty rate among surveyed cities, at 30.6 percent, according to the study.
"In taking a look at our collected data, no city in the bottom ten of crime rate (that is, has the lowest crime) has a poverty rate higher than 12.9 percent. But for cities in the top ten, every one has a poverty rate of 14.5 percent or higher, topping out at 30.6 percent in San Bernardino," the study said.
San Bernardino residents have recently expressed concerns about the city's crime wave, as there were 24 homicides reported in the city within the first four months of the year.
"We've had a recent spate of violence in our city that's got a lot of people pretty concerned about it," San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said recently.