Report: NY is 19th Most Dangerous State

Editor’s note: The original version of this story claimed that the report ranked the most dangerous communities on Long Island. That was inaccurate, namely because no towns under the jurisdiction of the Suffolk or Nassau police departments were included in the data. We apologize for the error.

New York is 19th most dangerous state in the country with an average of 406.8 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2012, according to data compiled by Law Street.

Law Street said it compiled violent crime statistics for every city in the United States with a population greater than 25,000. However, on Long Island, only cities/townships with their own police departments were included on New York’s list of crime rates.

Of the five Long Island communities on the list–Hempstead Village, Freeport Village, Riverhead Town, Long Beach and Southampton Town–Hempstead Village ranked first on Long Island and eighth in the state with 853.25 violent crimes per 100,000 people.

Freeport Village, with a crime rate of 354.2, was also above the average violent crime rate of 300 for a city of 25,000-49,999 people in the country, according to the report.
Riverhead Town had a crime rate of 224.79 in 2012, which ranked it 26th out of 64 New York communities, according to Law Street.

Long Beach, with a crime rate of 134.03, and Southampton Town, with a crime rate 127.35, ranked 37th and 39th, respectively on the list. Both of those rates are well below the national average.

The Law Street report pulled together data from the FBI on occurrences of violent crimes, murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Read the full report here.