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OGDEN, Utah (AP) -- A new study ranks the Salt Lake-Ogden area among the worst in the nation for larceny but among the best for having a low murder rate.
The study by Sperling's Best Places put the Salt Lake-Ogden area in the top third of 100 metro areas in crimes per capita.
It had a higher crimes per capita rate than Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati.
However its rate of violent crime was much lower than for those cities.
The study is based on population figures from the Census Bureau and the 2002 FBI crime index.
"All this is telling me is that as a state we have a very high larceny rate -- but we already knew that," said Ogden Police Chief Jon Greiner, "Utah is typically in the top five or six states for larceny crimes. ... On the other hand, we are always one of the lowest for violent crime."
About five years ago, Utah was No. 1 in larceny crime, and the state has been high in property crime for the last two decades, he said.
Layton police Lt. Kevin Allred pointed to differences among communities.
"I'd dare suggest if you take cities like Layton, Clearfield, Farmington, Kaysville, Bountiful ... and tried to use the statistics on homicide, we'd be the lowest in the nation. It's the cities like Ogden, Salt Lake and West Valley that bring it up because they have a lot more (homicides) than (the Davis County cities)," he said.
The crime categories in the study were murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft.
The study said the Salt Lake-Ogden area was ninth worst for larceny, but was the eighth lowest for both murder and robbery.
The area was around the middle of the pack for the other categories.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
