The 14th annual “City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America” was published and released on Sunday by CQ Press.

The report was generated by using the FBI’s September 24th crime statistics report. It takes a look at 378 cities with populations of at least 75,000 based on per-capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and auto theft.

Each of the crime categories are considered separately and weighted based on the seriousness of the crime. The 2006 most dangerous U.S. city was St. Louis, which fell to second this year.

The top ten most dangerous U.S. cities for 2007 were as follows:

1 – Detroit, MI
2 – St. Louis, MO
3 – Flint, MI
4 – Oakland, CA
5 – Camden, NJ
6 – Birmingham, AL
7 – North Charleston, SC
8 – Memphis, TN
9 – Richmond, CA
10 – Cleveland, OH

The top ten safest U.S. cities for 2007 were as follows:

1 – Mission Viejo, CA
2 – Clarkstown, NY
3 – Brick Township, NJ
4 – Amherst, NY
5 – Sugar Land, TX
6 – Colonie, NY
7 – Thousand Oaks, CA
8 – Newton, MA
9 – Toms River Township, NJ
10 – Lake Forest, CA

The study assigns a crime score to each city with the score of 0 representing the national average. This year, Detroit got a score of 407, followed by St. Louis with 406. The safest city, Mission Viejo got a score of -82.

Photo credit: Keith Syvinski