Crime:America's 25 Highest-Risk Shopping Center Neighborhoods
freakout
America's 25 Highest-Risk Shopping Center Neighborhoods
NEW YORK (APBnews.com) -- In the first consumer project of its kind,
APBnews.com and CAP Index Inc. have assessed and ranked the nation's 1,765
largest shopping centers for local crime risk.
Using proprietary statistics developed by CAP Index, the 1999 APBnews.com/CAP
Index Shopping Crime Risk Assessment has determined the 25 highest-risk and
25 lowest-risk shopping center locations in the country. The study looked at
facilities of 400,000 square feet or more -- the threshold used by the
International Council of Shopping Centers to define regional shopping
centers. Data on the size of individual malls was acquired from the National
Research Bureau, a private provider of marketing data on retailers.
The APBnews.com/CAP Index analysis is the first attempt to do a comparison of
shopping centers using a uniform national measure for crime risk. Traditional
statistics, like the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, are more than a year old
when they are released. Meanwhile, crime statistics gathered by shopping
centers themselves are kept private. CAP Index's system, on the other hand,
uses fresh data in a nationally standardized format to predict crime risk for
the coming year.
The APBnews.com/CAP Index study focused on the risk of violent crime, which
was defined as murder, rape or robbery.
The highest crime risk found was for the Southgate Shopping Center in
Memphis, Tenn. The lowest risk of all was measured for the Great Lakes Mall
outside Cleveland in Mentor, Ohio.
The assessment of shopping center crime risk looked at the area surrounding
malls and shopping centers. While the risk of crime around a shopping center
may be high, the security measures taken by police and the facility itself
can mitigate the actual risk faced there. Managers at a few shopping centers
who responded to questions from APBnews.com said they feel they have an
adequately trained and managed security force, proper lighting throughout
parking lots and other security systems, such as surveillance cameras.
The top 25
In descending order of risk, the APBnews.com/CAP Index analysis identified
the 25 shopping centers in the highest-risk locations as:
1. Southgate Shopping Center, Memphis, Tenn.
2. Pecanland Mall, Monroe, La.
3. Omni International Mall, Miami
4. Saint Louis Centre, St. Louis
5. New Orleans Centre, New Orleans
6. Concourse Plaza Shopping Center, New York
7. Mondawmin/Metro Plaza, Baltimore
8. Greenbriar Mall, Atlanta
9. Westland Mall, Hialeah, Fla.
10. Long Beach Plaza, Long Beach, Calif.
11. Gateway Shopping Center, Jacksonville, Fla.
12. Palm Springs Mile Shopping Center, Hialeah, Fla.
13. Northside Shopping Center, Miami
14. Lauderhill Mall, Lauderhill, Fla.
15. One North State Street, Chicago
16. Oakwood Center, Gretna, La.
17. Iverson Mall, Hillcrest Heights, Md.
18. Tower City Center, Cleveland
19. North Bridge District, Chicago
20. Oakwood Plaza, Hollywood, Fla.
21. Water Tower Place, Chicago
22. 900 North Michigan Shops, Chicago
23. The Gallery At Market East, Philadelphia
24. Poplar Plaza Shopping Center, Memphis, Tenn.
25. Lakes Mall, Lauderdale Lakes, Fla.
The bottom 25
In ascending order of risk, with many tying scores, the APBnews.com/CAP Index
analysis identified the 25 shopping centers in the lowest-risk locations as:
1. Great Lakes Mall, Mentor, Ohio
2. Hanover Mall, Hanover, Mass.
2. Macedonia Commons, Macedonia, Ohio
4. Southpark Center, Strongsville, Ohio
5. Crystal Point, Crystal Lake, Ill.
5. Village Park Plaza, Carmel, Ind.
7. Centennial Promenade, Denver
8. Eastview Mall, Victor, N.Y.
8. Great Northern Mall, Clay, N.Y.
8. Park Meadows, Englewood, Colo.
11. Cranberry Mall, Mars, Pa.
11. Warren Mall, Warren, Pa.
13. Mall at Tuttle Crossing, Amlin, Ohio
13. Northpointe Plaza Retail Shops, Lewis Center, Ohio
15. Chesterfield Mall, Chesterfield, Mo.
15. Clifton Country Mall, Clifton Park, N.Y.
15. Montgomery Mall, Montgomeryville, Pa.
15. Oak View Mall, Omaha, Neb.
15. The Crossing, Clifton Park, N.Y.
20. Montgomery Square, Montgomeryville, Pa.
20. Orland Park Place, Orland Park, Ill.
20. Orland Square, Orland Park, Ill.
20. Utica Park Place, Utica, Mich.
24. Susquehanna Valley Mall, Selinsgrove, Pa.
24. Westwood Plaza, Omaha, Neb.
Officials challenge findings
APBnews.com contacted all 50 of the shopping centers listed in this story but
only a handful responded. A few expressed fear that a high rating might be
used to tar their shopping center as being "high crime" when the facility
itself is well protected.
Southgate Shopping Center in Memphis has a public library, said Andy
Groveman, senior vice president of Belz Enterprises, which operates the
center. "Certainly, perceptually, from a consumer standpoint, it's not
considered at all to be an at-risk shopping center.
"It is in an inner-city location, no question about it; however, you'll find
more crime in other areas of the city than you will there," he said. "Your
numbers in areas don't match in any way, shape or form as to what's
occurring."
"We have no crime at the mall," said Cynthia Baker, manager of the Lauderhill
Mall in Lauderhill, Fla., a community just west of Fort Lauderdale. The mall
ranked 14th in risk. "I'm across the street from an industrial area, but that
crime does not come over here."
Jay Hebert, marketing manager of New Orleans' downtown development district,
defended his city's New Orleans Centre mall. "We would respectfully
disagree," Hebert said. "In the past, New Orleans certainly has had its crime
problems. We got rid of the bad elements in the police department. Most of
them have gone to jail or are under indictment.
"Crime has dramatically decreased in New Orleans," he said. "We feel that
we're trying to attract development. With your best intentions, ya'll come in
and drop a bomb."
Crimes against people
CAP Index -- its name stands for "Crimes Against Persons" -- provides
neighborhood crime-risk assessments to clients that include the U.S.
Department of Justice and companies such as the Bank of America, Exxon,
McDonalds, Taco Bell and the Marriott hotel chain. The company is
headquartered in Exton, Pa.
APBnews.com has retained CAP Index to provide various crime-risk data
consulting services. In November, the two companies unveiled the results of
their first College Community Crime Risk Assessment, which provides a ranking
for all of America's 1,497 four-year college campus communities.
In addition, the two companies have created the online APB Community
CrimeCheck system that allows users to check the crime risk in any ZIP code
in America.
The CEO of CAP Index is Robert Figlio, a former associate professor of
criminology at the University of Pennsylvania and professor of criminal
deviance at the University of California at Riverside. In the late 1980s,
Figlio pioneered a way to quantify what most criminologists see as the root
causes of crime, loosely called social disorganization, using computer
mapping and readily available computer records.
The system does not measure actual crime rates but instead estimates the risk
of crime for the coming year by comparing socioeconomic data to past reports
of crime. The factors that drive CAP Index's estimates of crime risk include
household income, family structure, migration patterns, housing values and
average level of education. The computer model does not use information on
race or ethnic origin.
The APBnews.com/CAP Index risk assessments do not account for security
practices at any shopping center.
By Bob Port, an APBnews.com senior computer-assisted reporting editor
(rober...@apbnews.com).
Roger Redding
1) The 25 lowest-risk neighborhoods are all in places where it's too
freaking cold for any self-respecting criminal to be out in December.
2) The 25 highest-risk neighborhood are mostly in warm-weather
places (which make one wonder about all the Chicago sites).
3) Does anybody else think it's sad that we have to resort to
labelling the posts to alt.true-crime which are actually about
crime?
Roger
frea...@iac.net (freakout) wrote:
>Wednesday December 15 08:53 PM EST
>
>America's 25 Highest-Risk Shopping Center Neighborhoods
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