# Is crime a southern thing? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919 "2015-06-19T02:45:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/21 "2015-06-19T13:29:28Z")
I’d be curious to know the population densities vs. the crime. Are you talking numbers or percentages? And yeah, those of us in the south (Florida here) do not consider Hawaii part of the south. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/22 "2015-06-19T14:29:33Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It is blindingly obvious that murder rates are higher in the South if one just looks at a table of murder rates by state. True, but if one looks at total [violent crime rates](http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/neighborhoods/crime-rates/top100dangerous/)(violent crimes per 1,000 residents) for 2015, southern cities make up none of the worst 5, three of the top 10 and 6 of the top 20 Violent crimes were defined as murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault and rape. The definition of “South” is often fluid as well. For this excercise, I defined “southern cities” as those in the coastal states from Texas to Virginia, plus Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas (12 states). Using [2014 counts](http://www.infoplease.com/us/states/population-by-rank.html), those States make up 33% of the US population (106MM of 219MM). So the numbers show that 30% of violent crimes are committed in states comprising 33% of the population. Not so shocking. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/23 "2015-06-19T14:45:28Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Hawaii is very southern in geography but I don’t think it’s considered part of the “South.” Neither are New Mexico and Nevada. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/24 "2015-06-19T15:43:06Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I have heard that hot weather tends to make people commit more crimes, but I don’t know if there is any scientific validity to it. It is true, however, that it is harder to go breaking into cars or whatever when it’s cold, and tempers do rise in the heat. > > But I know that the south has no monopoly on crime. Hell I live in NY. I live upstate, and it’s peaceful here, but we have lovely old NYC not three hours south. 😕 NYC is one of the lowest crime rate cities in the country. > **[List of United States cities by crime rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate_(2012))** > > The following table of United States cities by crime rate is based on Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) statistics from 2019 for the 100 most populous cities in America that have reported data to the FBI UCR system. > The population numbers are based on U.S. Census estimates for the year end. The number of murders includes nonnegligent manslaughter. This list is based on the reporting. In most cases, the city and the reporting agency are identical. However, in some cas... Buffalo is way worse for many measures. ---
**Author:** ![bubba001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f17d59/32.png) [@bubba001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubba001)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/25 "2015-06-19T23:06:04Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Maybe you could read the OP again and notice he is talking about Southerners in general, both black and white, instead of pretending he is only talking about blacks. I think there is a level of violence in their culture, that is absent from the northerners. Also your stats don’t show where these folks are culturally. A lot of folks here are 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th generation removed from the south but still talk about going back “down home”. These are the folks with the guns, the bibles, and they will use them on you!! ---
**Author:** ![bubba001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f17d59/32.png) [@bubba001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubba001)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/26 "2015-06-19T23:19:19Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > ETA: Are you asking whether or not black Southerners made parts of Michigan a Hellhole? The answer to that is no. Lots of black Southerners fled to the North when they were actively prevented from making a good life for themselves in the South. They thought that places like Michigan were a good place to do that but they were wrong at least in the long term. When Detroit was booming, blacks of Southern heritage came and produced the Motown sound among many other things. However, they never thrived collectively as a whole. Many of them did a reverse migration back to the South where their families were when they failed to thrive in their new northern home. After the auto industry failed and outsourced most of its labor overseas, the only people left were the ones that could not move and that meant the poorest and the most degenerate. That desperate recipe will generate crime no matter who you are talking about. > > I am not an expert on Michigan but I still know a fair bit about it at the macro level. It is a classic case of a state being supported by a one industry city combined with horrible government corruption. I am not sure what the long term prognosis is but it will never be what it once was again. Migrating blacks from the South have little to do with it. Their current plight is simply the result of many bad decisions built up over decades. IMHO, one thing that people overlook is that Detroit was a boomtown for decades. The boom cooled off, then died. I lived, worked in Detroit for years, still go there occasionally for dinner, a ball game or whatever. In 1978, I worked in a Chrysler plant on the east side. 6000 other folks worked there as well. The local neighborhood had a couple of bars, several restuarants, stores, a bakery with great strudel, and a lot of activity. In 1979 Chrysler closed the plant, and in 1980, I happened to drive thru area. It looked like a bomb hit the place. Nothing was open, and I didn’t see anyone at all in the middle of the morning. No businesses open at all, place was covered in trash, that plant closed, the neighborhood died right then. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/27 "2015-06-19T23:22:41Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > 😕 NYC is one of the lowest crime rate cities in the country. > > [List of United States cities by crime rate - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate_(2012)) > > Buffalo is way worse for many measures. Maybe **Anaamika** still thinks she’s in the 1970s. ---
**Author:** ![bubba001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f17d59/32.png) [@bubba001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubba001)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/28 "2015-06-19T23:24:50Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It is blindingly obvious that murder rates are higher in the South if one just looks at a table of murder rates by state. The top ten in 2013: > > Louisiana > Alabama > Mississippi > Maryland > Michigan > South Carolina > Missouri > New Mexico > Nevada > Georgia > > Most southern; the only truly northern state is the OP’s home state, which does make one wonder what he hasn’t noticed. Michigan is the Northern outlier, really. Southern states are almost all above the national average; Virginia and Texas sneak in just below it. > > Louisiana is absolutely a huge outlier; it is #1 in murders every year, year after year, by an absolutely gigantic margin. I am not sure why that is. It is poorer than average but not the poorest. It’s hot, and that does cause crime, but so is Texas. It has a large black population, who are likelier to be poor and caught up in cyclical crime, but other states with similarly high black populations have murder rates nowhere near Louisiana’s. Louisiana is just way, way out of whack, like it’s a different country. > > The lowest ten: > > Iowa > Hawaii > Vermont > Utah > New Hampshire > Idaho > Maine > Oregon > Massachusetts > Minnesota > > Hawaii is very southern in geography but I don’t think it’s considered part of the “South.” If you look at the folks whacking each other, they are overwhelming southern in heritage. They might have been born in Michigan, but they were raised as if they were in the south. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/29 "2015-06-19T23:33:00Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Crime is a “people” thing. This with it maybe being a little more common in the cities where people are packed closer together. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2015, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/30 "2015-06-19T23:33:32Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It is blindingly obvious that murder rates are higher in the South if one just looks at a table of murder rates by state. The top ten in 2013: These are by rate (per 100k, I assume) and not totals? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919/31 "2015-06-20T03:15:01Z")
> [@bubba001](#): > > If you look at the folks whacking each other, they are overwhelming southern in heritage. They might have been born in Michigan, but they were raised as if they were in the south. The simple fact is that some black groups ‘whack’ each other much more often than other groups do and I don’t mean that as a racist statement because it only takes a relatively few bad apples to skew the numbers badly. It is just a statistical reality. We have had polls on this board that asked how many murder victims and murderers do you know personally and people always wonder why my numbers are so high. I almost lost count at about a metric shit-ton for me (15 off the top of my head but some of them were white) because I grew up in rural Louisiana with a roughly 50-50 proportion of white and black. I never felt in danger myself except part of the time when I was in college in New Orleans. It was truly dangerous in the early 1990’s and many unsuspecting tourists were hurt or killed and I probably didn’t miss it by much myself a few times. The overall murder rate is still bad in national terms but it is better than it was 20 years ago. The touristy parts of New Orleans are very well policed but you can still end up in some serious trouble if you stumble drunk into the wrong part of the French Quarter let alone some of the really poor neighborhoods. If you want to know why Louisiana has such a high murder rate, it is because most of its cities have gone majority minority and there are ongoing turf wars among really poor groups. People that aren’t personally involved with gangs or organized crime aren’t at risk much but the overall body count among people involved in those activities is very high like Chicago except distributed throughout an entire state. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-crime-a-southern-thing/722919.md?page=1)