Safest City Information

	10 Safest Cities
1.	Newton, Massachusetts
2.	Clarkstown, New York
3.	Amherst, New York
4.	Mission Viejo, California
5.	Brick Township, New Jersey
6.	Troy, Michigan
7.	Thousand Oaks, California
8.	Round Rock, Texas
9.	Lake Forest, California
10.	Cary, North Carolina
	How Other Ventura County Cities Ranked:
22.	Simi Valley, California
77.	Ventura, California
150.	Oxnard, California
	10 Unsafest Cities
1.	Camden, New Jersey
2.	Detroit, Michigan
3.	St. Louis, Missouri
4.	Flint, Michigan
5.	Richmond, Virginia
6.	Baltimore, Maryland
7.	Atlanta, Georgia
8.	New Orleans, Louisiana
9.	Gary, Indiana
10.	Birmingham, Alabama

Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks are high on list of safest cities again
By Marjorie Hernandez, mhernandez@VenturaCounntyStar.com
November 22, 2005

When Scott Mitnick decided to move his family to Thousand Oaks six years ago, it wasn't only because he was taking a position with the city, eventually becoming city manager. It was also the safe, clean community with high-performing schools and housing that drew him in.

"Thousand Oaks is outstanding overall," he said. "The infrastructure of the community, the location ... all of that brings an overall sense of place and pride of ownership."  
 
Residents of Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley have something to be proud of again this year for living in two of the safest cities in the nation. According to a list released Monday by Morgan Quitno Press, Thousand Oaks ranked seventh, and Simi Valley came in as the 22nd safest city in the overall list of 369 metropolitan areas included in the study. Newton, Mass., was at the top.

In 2004, Thousand Oaks ranked seventh safest overall, and Simi Valley was 17 but dropped to 22nd this year. For cities with populations from 100,000 to 499,999, however, Thousand Oaks placed second this year and Simi Valley placed sixth. Amherst, N.Y., was No. 1.

Ventura was 77th safest overall, and Oxnard was 150th.

Morgan Quitno Press, a private research and publishing company in Lawrence, Kan., has been compiling the list annually for 12 years. It ranks cities with populations of 75,000 or more. The researchers used latest crime statistics released by the FBI from 2004 to October this year in six categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft.

The list doesn't account for larceny-theft, arson and hate crimes, said Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno Press.

"Some cities have disparities and sometimes missing data with arson ... and data on hate crimes is a relative new addition to the (FBI) uniform crime reporting," Morgan said. "Larceny-theft also provides only a slight discrepancy. We wanted to weigh the rating more on violent crimes, and we wanted to stay consistent to see trends over the years."

Paul Miller, Simi Valley's mayor and former police chief, said comparing cities with varying populations and leaving out certain reported crimes such as larceny-theft and arson does skew the numbers somewhat.

"When you take out of the mix what has been used traditionally to compare cities, it changes things," he said. "Now you are comparing apples to oranges."

Oxnard Police Department Chief John Crombach agrees. He said it's unfair to compare Oxnard to other larger metropolitan cities and smaller cities.

When the FBI releases its data, Oxnard compares its crime statistics with other cities with populations from 150,000 to 200,000. Crombach said when Oxnard is compared to 45 cities nationwide of this size, the city actually ranks as the fifth safest in that bracket.

Crombach said Oxnard had a significant amount of auto thefts in 2004, but those numbers have decreased by 63 percent so far in 2005. "We have some room to grow, and I would like to see us in the top 10 along with Thousand Oaks," Crombach said, "but we have a larger, more complex community."

Miller said the best way to track an individual city's safety record is to compare each crime in the area over a period of years, which provides more specific indicators.