BY DHIREN SHAH
The Crime Index is very good when a person is looking for a house or an apartment to buy or rent. For the “Local Talk” area, I would like to tell our readers to have a summarized crime index to understand your neighborhood.
Many city administrations say that their city is “safe” and brag about how certain numbers are down. However, the only people that can declare a city “safe” are the residents.
Every year, local administrations show off data to tell everyone there is a reduction in the crime rates. It shows that crime has gone down a little, but if the crime rate is down every year, drastically as they say, then there should not be any crime in those cities. So, it is harder to believe the statements given by the administrations.
We all should check the data with other sources first, and then believe them, as they have a biased interest in making the numbers look good. With that in mind, I decided to put the rhetoric of the administrations to the test.
Data here is taken from www.neighborhoodscout.com. According to their index rating system, 100 is the safest, and anything low is not as safe. For example, a number of 95 means the city is 95% safer than most cities. Per the ratings, the least safe city in the index is Irvington, as their number is 14, followed by Newark at 16.
Basically, Irvington is safer than only 14% of cities in the U.S. On the other hand, you would be safer in 84% of the other cities in the United States of America.
Here are numbers for other cities in Essex County. Do you think your city is “safe” compared to what your mayors say?
Irvington: 14. Newark: 16. Orange: 19. Belleville: 21. East Orange: 23. West Orange: 27. Maplewood: 31. South Orange: 37. Bloomfield: 37. Montclair: 40.
