Reed's Got to Go

I've crunched some numbers, and I'm totally appalled that Reed would cut police officers in the current budget crisis. This is fearmongering at its worst.

Not only does Reed have absolutely no understanding of statistics (as evidenced by his insistance to the Patriot News that the crime stats for Harrisburg are really half what's being reported because we have only 48,000 people and the crime rates are per 100,000) but he is willing to cut police in his battle with the City Council when we are facing a crime wave.

Here are the figures, based on crimes per 100,000 as reported by the Harrisburg Police Department to the FBI. I took the violent crime statistics for 2005 and calculated the rate per person, then multiplied by 100,000 to get the rate below.

Based on this, Washington DC is much safer!

Harrisburg = 1687 per 100,000

DC = 1401 per 100,000

Baltimore = 1787 per 100,000

Savannah = 650 per 100,000