Report claims Nevada is the most dangerous state, again

A new version of an annual analysis of FBI Crime data by CQ Press shows that Nevada is ranked "least favorably."
I'm very suspicious of this kind of analysis. First, combining crime reports by state does not make a great deal of sense. Crime in New York City isn't really strongly related to crime in Buffalo, for example. Since so much of the population is focused in Clark County, a look at crime here in Nevada is really a look at state-wide crime is almost like a diluted look at crime in metro Las Vegas.
When you compare the states, Nevada comes in with the highest crime rate for this year's report. Because of reporting delays, this year's report is based on 2009 crime reports. Crime Tracker 3's weekly look at crime trends, on the other hand, uses data that is current to the last complete week (i.e. our statistics are between one and seven days delayed, depending on the day of the week of our report.)
It should be noted that the FBI, which compiles the data CQ Press uses to generate its reports, discourages the use of the statistics to make "rankings." The FBI is also working on a more thorough system to collect crime data beyond the ten crime categories tracked in the Uniform Crime Reports.

A Life of Crime Raw

Hope you caught "A Life of Crime" on News 3 at Five. If not, watch at 11pm, or check out the story on the main website. Our story was only a few minutes long, but the inmates spoke for more than 40 minutes in total. So we decided to put up their entire talks here.

Ramon (5:49)
Ramon came to the US from Cuba as a child, and has spent close to three decades on the inside.


Rick Pt. 1 (7:30)
Rick gave up a promising future for fast money.


Rick Pt. 2 (6:35)
Rick shares the story of his prison buddy "KitKatt."


Theresa (3:27)
Theresa's brush with crime has had serious physical and emotional costs.


Brian (4:22)
Brian says its tough to be white behind bars.


Joey (9:12)
We were having problems with Joey's mic, so there was not a lot of him in our TV story. That's unfortunate, because Joey gave some of the most uplifting comments of the night.


Hampton (6:43)
Hampton was a special guest that night. Her story was not included in our TV story. She is not a prisoner, but she is an example of how even after making bad decisions, you can decide to put your life on track.