Figures make N.O. the deadliest city
Monday, March 12, 2007
A new study by a Tulane University professor puts New Orleans' murder rate as the highest in the country.
The study estimates the city's 2006 murder rate at 96 per every 100,000 people.
Determining the exact per capita murder rate, the most popular measuring stick for overall violent crime, has largely been up for debate, falling victim to slippery estimates of the city's post-Katrina population.
The new study, by demographer Mark VanLandingham, aims to fix the main flaw in previous per capita murder estimates for 2006: It takes into account the large change in New Orleans' population during the year, with far fewer people in the city at the beginning of 2006 than at the end. That change raises the murder rate substantially.
For instance, using the highest static population estimate VanLandingham found in his research, 201,000, would produce a murder rate of about 80 per 100,000 people, still significantly lower than the new study's conclusion. Using the figure New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley has offered -- 275,000, based on an estimate rather than research -- the murder rate would fall to just 58 per 100,000 people.
VanLandingham, a professor in the international health and development department of Tulane's School of Public Health, sought to bring hard fact to a debate between the Police Department and critics who say the it has downplayed the crime problem.
"It's part of this big policy debate: How bad is the murder rate?" VanLandingham said. "It was a question that could be answered. And I wanted to do it right, come up with a correct estimate."
The study also shows a steadily increasing murder rate since 2004. The murder rate for 2004 was 57 per every 100,000 people. In 2005, the year Katrina hit, the rate was 65 per every 100,000 people, according to VanLandingham's study.
According to his study, the 2006 murder rate was 68 percent higher than in 2004.
'Murder city'
The 2006 murder rates of other cities were exponentially lower than New Orleans' rate. Houston had a rate of about 20 per 100,000 residents, according to statistics for the first half of 2006, the most recent released by the FBI. Detroit had a rate of 41; Baltimore, 42; St. Louis, 32; Philadelphia, 25; and Newark, N.J., 36.
In analyzing crime, demographers and crime analysts say murder rates best reflect overall trends because killings are almost always reported.
New Orleans Police Department spokesman Sgt. Joe Narcisse said police officials look at the murder rate but question whether any true rate can be established. "The change in our population makes it hard to quantify with any degree of certainty," he said.
Narcisse added that holding the title of the country's most murderous city damages New Orleans' reputation. "It hurts the city, and it hurts us all, when we look at murder rates with those per capita numbers," he said.
The FBI's annual crime statistics -- the standard measure for a city's totals for murder and other major crimes -- use the midyear population estimate provided by the city, which doesn't account for New Orleans' radical shift in population in 2006.
In his study, VanLandingham used a group of the most widely accepted population estimates to estimate a month-by-month breakdown of the number of people in the city.
Other demographers and criminologists called the research the most accurate -- and frightening -- estimate of the murder rate to date.
"What the police have done is use year-end stats and year-end population to push the rate down," said Peter Scharf, a criminologist at the University of New Orleans. "This study makes the rate more precise."
Scharf said New Orleans' rate far exceeds that of other large cities. However, he sees a more worrisome sign in the study. "Now matter how your parse it, we are murder city, murder capital," he said. "But forget it, let's move on. The second issue is that we have an ascending murder rate. It's going up. That's more worrisome."
Police methodology
Police officials have shied away from discussing the 2006 murder rate, opting instead to talk about the year-end total of 162, a total that was lower than years past. In those years, however, the city had a population at least double the current estimates.
At a news conference on New Year's Day, Riley heralded the city's 2006 murder total as the lowest in 30 years.
He called the population estimates way too low and said they inflated the crime rate, and also spoke of staff shortages and hardships faced by the department and the city. He said the tally of 161 murders, later bumped to 162, was substantially lower than in the years before Katrina and was the lowest in decades.
He was optimistic. He was also incorrect. In 1999, the Police Department tallied 159 murders, according to the department's Web site and media reports published at the time. That number came at a time when New Orleans' population was around 485,000, according to census figures.
Narcisse called Riley's inaccurate declaration a "slip of the tongue."
"When the superintendent made that statement, perhaps he was generalizing a bit," Narcisse said. "It is a low number, and it is one of the lowest numbers in this time period. It's just not the lowest."
Population estimates vary
Gregory Stone, a lead researcher in one well-known population study and a manager of health demographics at the Louisiana Public Health Institute, said officials are citing year-end numbers that do not properly reflect the city's population. "Taking a year-end number in a city that has been repopulating gives a way too generous, way too low rate," Stone said.
The New Orleans Emergency Operations Center conducted three separate estimates, with the most recent theorizing that about 181,000 people resided in New Orleans at the end of January 2006, Stone said.
Other estimates have varied greatly. The U.S. Census Bureau's population estimate for Jan. 1, 2006, was 158,000. The Louisiana Public Health Institute estimated that the city boasted a population of about 201,000 between June and October.
Several demographers interviewed said the number is likely lower. Conservative estimates put the population under 200,000.
Riley has previously said migrant workers living and working in the city are not being counted in such estimates. He has cautioned that the city could get an "awful reputation" based on miscalculations in population.
Narayan Sastry, a demographer with the Rand Corp., which has conducted a series of population studies, agreed with VanLandingham's methodology.
"That's really the only correct way to do it," Sastry said, adding that demographers may differ on population estimates. "Generally, if you have a stable population, it wouldn't matter. But in this case, it's very different."
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