A Safe Place To Live

Every day the news depicts more coverage of violent crimes. It often seems that morals are not the same as they used to be in this country. I have lived in Kentucky all my life and have felt rather safe. This paper will explore the crimes in my college city of Morehead, KY and compare it to other nearby cities, in order to see just how safe it really is.

According to the last census taken, Morehead has a population of 5914. Its population is 94% white, 3% African American, and 3% is other/mixed. A town as small as this one if often difficult to find a steady job in, which is most likely why the median income of the city is a mere $24,014. Now that we have a good idea of Morehead's census details we can begin to look into its crimes rates.

Since the population of Morehead is so small, all rates will be compared per 100,000. In 2003, the violent crime rate in Morehead was significantly lower that the state average. The number of violent crimes committed was 92 per 100,000. There were no reported murders or violent robberies. There was only 1 violent rape reported that year. The highest category for violent crimes was aggravated assault, which was 6. Aggravated assault by definition is an unlawful attack upon a person with the purpose of inflicting severe bodily harm and most of the time some type of weapon is involved. All of the statistical information received was found on the website www.idcide.com.

Property crimes seemed to be much more popular in Morehead in 2003 than the violent crimes. The property crime number per 100,000 was 2552. There was 30 burglaries, 154 larcenies/theft and 11 stolen vehicles. Most of the time crimes that involve petty theft are much more common in rural areas such as Morehead, because many of their citizens are in tough financial situations.

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I also looked at the crime rates in other cities in Kentucky that were larger than Morehead. The first city I want to talk about is Lexington, which is located only 56 miles away. This cities population is over 200,000 and 81% of its residents are white. The violent crime rate here per 100,000 was 468. That is higher than Morehead, but still a good average in comparison with the size of the city and its residents. It is sometimes easier to get away with a crime in a larger city because not everyone knows your name and there is more crime potential to choose from. The rest of my search results concluded that there were 18 murders, 122 forcible rapes, 518 robberies, and 584 aggravated assaults. The results may sound a little high, but they were indeed lower than the Kentucky average, but higher than Morehead's. Its common knowledge that the more people you have in a city the harder it can be to control them. Police cannot be everywhere all of the time.

Another large city located only about 125 miles away from Morehead is Louisville. Its crime levels are higher than Kentucky's average. For every 100,00 residents there are 522 violent crimes