May 08, 2018
Darby Borough in Delaware County ranked No. 2 in the top 25 most dangerous American cities, according to a report done by the National Council for Home Safety and Security.
Two other local cities made the list, including Chester City at No. 14 and Atlantic City at No. 25.
The report concluded that high poverty rates and little job growth often correlated to higher rates of homicides and other types of violent crime in an area. Gun control laws play a much smaller role than income inequality, it found.
In Darby Borough, which has an approximate population of 11,000, the crime rate is 3,617 per every 100,000 people.
For 71% of the list, violent crime has dropped in the last year — often with a percentage drop in the double digits, the report also found.
The council collected this information in part because of the Parkland, Florida school shooting, but also because of the larger conversation surrounding gun violence, control and crime in the U.S.
The report found that “the strictness of gun laws seems to play a limited role in violent crime rates,” as states with multiple major cities on the list had lax gun laws, however there were outliers. For example, New Jersey has five cities on the top 100 list, and yet it has comparatively stricter gun laws.
The report includes the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting database and crime reports from 2000 to 2014.
