The G-T’s editorial for Monday, Sept. 20 reflects on those odd crime numbers for 2009 that recently were released by the FBI for all Oregon cities, including Corvallis and Philomath.
Both Corvallis and Philomath reported more property crime in 200
9 than in 2008, an unusual trend considering that property crime continues to decline in Oregon and in the United States.
As I was working on the editorial, I crunched some numbers to come up with crime rates for a variety of Oregon cities. I didn’t end up using any of those numbers in
the editorial, but I thought I would share some of them here:
– Philomath in 2009 had a lower crime rate than Corvallis, based on the crimes reported to the FBI. (Philomath had about 26 reported crimes for every 1,000 residents, compared to Corvallis, which had about 34.5 crimes for every 1,000 residents.)
– Corvallis, in turn, had a slightly lower crime rate than Albany, which had about 39 crimes for every 1,000 population.
– Tigard, which has about the same population as Corvallis, had a slightly higher crime rate, about 35 crimes for every 1,000 population.
– The crime rate in Eugene (about 60 crimes for every 1,000 population) was almost double that of Corvallis. Eugene, in fact, appeared to have a higher crime rate than Portland, which had about 52 crimes for every 1,000 population.
It’s worth remembering that the FBI numbers are based on just these serious crimes — murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, theft, motor-vehicle theft and arson.
Check out the FBI’s crime-statistics site by clicking here.
