Pittsburgh ranks lowest in crime compared to peers

Crime in the Pittsburgh metropolitan region increased in 2013, but the numbers were still good enough for the area to have the lowest crime rate when compared with peer benchmark regions, according to a recent FBI report.

The 2013 edition of the FBI’s annual Crime in the United States report, released Nov. 10, also showed that Pittsburgh had the lowest rates of both forcible rape and motor vehicle theft per 100,000 inhabitants. The benchmark regions for comparison included Boston, which ranked second-lowest for overall crime rate, Philadelphia,which ranked fifth-lowest, Denver, St. Louis, Detroit and more.

According to an FBI release, the report is a “statistical compilation of offense and arrest data reported by law enforcement agencies voluntarily participating in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.”

An interactive graphical display of Pittsburgh-related data from the report was made available on pittsburghtoday.org last week.

The report includes nationwide crime data from 18,415 city, county, state, university and college, tribal and federal agencies. In 2013, according to the release, there were an estimated 1,163,146 violent crimes in the country — the categories which made up the total, including murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, each showed a decline when compared with estimates from the 2012 report released last year. 

Pittsburgh Police spokeswoman Sonya Toler said she can’t say whether or not the rankings were expected, as it was not something that was a focus of the Bureau, but she said “all of the Bureau of Police’s efforts are aimed at crime reduction.”

Pittsburgh also ranked well in categories where it did not have the lowest rate.

The region ranked fourth-lowest in murder  — the rate decreased from 4.2 to 4.1 murders per 100,000 population from 2012 to 2013.

Pittsburgh ranked second-lowest in robbery, behind Denver. The rate of robberies per 100,000 inhabitants decreased from 89.9 to 83.7 from 2012 to 2013. 

In other categories, the city ranked fourth in lowest rate of aggravated assaults, second in lowest rate of burglaries and second in lowest rate of larceny-theft.