Read daily news stories in the New Orleans Advocate, and you’d be hard-pressed to come up with another city with the record of violence as New Orleans where carjackings have surged to the number-one contact sport.
Same for the Baton Rouge Advocate, where drive-by shootings are as common as gumbo at the Chimes Restaurant.
But, according to 24/7 Wall Street, that publications that produces surveys and rankings on just about any subject you can imagine, neither New Orleans nor Baton Rouge are even among the top 50 cities in the nation in terms of aggravated assault or violent crimes.
In fact, the city with the highest rate of violent crimes out of 1,122 cities surveyed (2,969.1 per 100,000 population) in 2020 is Monroe, which also just happens to be the number one city in the one-year change in the rate of aggravated assault (an increase of 1,271.7 percent).
Monroe’s rate of aggravated assaults (2,582.8 per 100,000 population) is the highest of 1,123 cities surveyed and the one-year change in all violent crime (an increase of 1,203.5 percent from 2019 to 2020) is also highest of 1,119 cities included in the survey.
All that for a city of 48,241 people.
And lest Alexandria feels smug, Louisiana’s hub city ranks 22nd in the nation in the change in its aggravated assault rate (an increase of 158.7 percent) and seventh-highest in both the rate of aggravated assault cases (1,459.1 per 100,000 population) and in the rate of all violent crimes (1,848.4 per 100,000).
The 278.6 percent increase in all violent crimes was 12th highest of 1,119 cities included in the survey.
Alexandria’s population of 47,012 is comparable to that of Monroe.
Granted, statistics can be influenced to a much greater extent in smaller cities like Monroe and Alexandria because any change at all has greater impact on the numbers.
But Shreveport, a city of 192,035, has a population comparable to Baton Rouge’s 227,470 and Shreveport’s change in aggravated assault cases from 2019 to 2020 showed an increase of 158.7 percent, which was 50th highest in the nation.
Shreveport’s 1,284 aggravated assault cases in 2020 was 59th highest and the rate of aggravated assaults per 100,000 population (691.9) was 68th highest of 1,123 cities surveyed. The city also was 68th highest in the one-year increase in all violent crime (143.5 percent). Shreveport’s violent crime rate (923 per 100,000) was 74th highest of 1,122 cities surveyed.
The figures for the survey were taken from the FBI’s 2019 and 2020 Uniform Crime Reports. In order to concentrate the survey on urban areas, cities with fewer than 25,000 people were excluded.
The majority of cities on the list are from South.
Louisiana Voice 
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Our society is becoming increasingly lawless. Civil law has become a compendium of suggestions and criminal law seems headed down the same path from citizens’ POVs. No small part of this trend are the examples set by the penultimate POTUS and other “leaders” who ignore laws with abandon.
Doesn’t make Houston, Portland, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Los Angeles, NYC, Detroit, Chicago, any less hell holes to have to change the population demographic in order to change the results. It’s like saying a city of 100 having a worst crime rate makes you forget about NYC’s, Minneapolis’s, and Chicago’s trending violent crime rate. 1) Who was in charge prior to the trend (what party was mayor), 2) what policies have been enacted (by Chief or DA, etc, on prosecutions). NO one should make excuses for what is going on in those downtown areas. It’s disgusting and people are tired of it. They are going to vote soon.
Brandon ________________________________
Unless I’m mistaken, the larger cities you mention were included in the survey. The only “change” in demographics was to eliminate cities of less than 25,000. This was a survey of cities of 25,000 and up (including Detroit, L.A. NYC, etc.) where the crime rate was growing the fastest. I don’t believe anyone was attempting to diminish the significance of crime in the larger cities. I think most people agree with you that “it’s disgusting and people are tired of it.”