Youngstown's crime rank reflects reality on streets

There's a danger in Youngstown officials' downplaying the findings of a national study on crime that puts the city in a bad light.
If there's a marked improvement in Youngstown's ranking in next year's study, the mayor wouldn't be able to claim bragging rights as the mayor of Camden, N.J., did recently. Mayor Gwendolyn Faison said she was thrilled to learn that her city no longer topped the most-dangerous list.
"You made my day!" Faison told the Associated Press. "There's a new hope and a new spirit."
In 2005, Camden was named the most dangerous city for the second year in a row. This year, the honor went to St. Louis. The second most dangerous was Detroit, followed by Flint, Mich., and Compton, Calif.
The safest city in 2005 was Brick, N.J., with a population of about 78,000, followed by Amherst, N.Y., and Mission Viejo, Calif.
Youngstown, with a population of under 80,000, was listed as the ninth most dangerous of all the cities evaluated by Morgan Quitno Press, and third among 126 cities of similar size.
"We have looked at the list compiled by Morgan Quitno; however, we are not sure how they have arrived at their conclusions. Being well aware that our data is not favorable, we have instituted several different approaches in how we do policing to improve our statistics. As for their naming our city as dangerous, we do feel that this is not an accurate portrayal," said Detective Sgt. Rick Alli.
But Alli could not have been blind to the irony of the front page of Tuesday's Vindicator featuring these two headlines: "Police dispute city's crime ranking" and "Youngstown -- Slayings of 2 lead cops to seek tips."
Reality
If the second headline were rare, we would agree with Alli's assessment that Morgan Quitno doesn't know what it's taking about in giving Youngstown a "dangerous" rating. But just go through a month's worth of newspapers and the reality of the city's streets comes though loud and clear.
Therefore, rather than being on the defensive, city officials should dedicate themselves to not only getting Youngstown off the bad list, but to winning a "greatest turnaround" designation from the private research and publishing company in Lawrence, Kan. The company compiles state and city crime statistics that it sells in publications. The crime numbers for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft come from the FBI.
We have previously praised Mayor Jay Williams for making crime his top priority, and have applauded his reaching out to Valley, state and federal law enforcement agencies to forge an aggressive campaign to clean up the streets.
In conjunction with that effort, we believe the mayor and key members of his administration, along with the chairmen of the relevant committees in city council, should visit some of the cities that have shed their "dangerous" rating in the Morgan Quitno study.
Youngstown is not unique in being cursed with an unacceptably high crime rate, but there are things that can be done to reverse this trend. Mayor Williams and other officials should find out what they are and how they can be applied locally.