Alabama Police Chiefs Dispute City Rankings In Recent ‘Most Dangerous Cities’ Report

Two police chiefs in Mobile and Birmingham, Alabama have spoken out to condemn a recent report by MoneyGeek that ranked the cities second and third on a list of the most dangerous cities in the country in 2023 based on a unique analysis combining 2021 national crime data with a calculation meant to represent the ‘cost of crime,’ John Sharp reports for Advance Local.

Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond and Mobile Chief Paul Prine both dismissed the report in comments to the Advance. Prine in particular claimed that Mobile’s numbers submitted to the FBI and used for the report were inflated: the Mobile Police Department has consistently publicly reported 51 homicides in 2021, but FBI data (repeated in the MoneyGeek analysis) counts 111 homicide offenses reported by the Mobile Police Department in 2021, a significant gap. 

You should know: MoneyGeek’s methodology relied in part on the FBI’s crime data reporting, which was remarkably incomplete last year. For cities where the FBI didn’t have data on file for a populous city, MoneyGeek’s researchers said they conducted their own research using each city’s individualized statistics, though a number of major cities (including large cities in Alabama) were excluded due to a lack of available information. Notably, the FBI “discourages ranking locations or making comparisons” using annual crime statistic data due the wide range of factors that can impact crime.