Morgan Quitno

Morgan Quitno Press is a research and publishing company based in Lawrence, Kansas, which compiles books with statistics of crime rates, health care, education, and other categories, ranking cities and states in the United States. Among the major categories are "Smartest State", "Most Dangerous State", "Most Dangerous City", "Most Dangerous Metro Area", "Most Livable State", "Healthiest State", and "Most Improved State"; some information is per capita while some is overall. In July 2007 Morgan Quitno was acquired by CQ Press, a division of Congressional Quarterly Inc.. Their ranking of jurisdictions in terms of "safety" has been criticized for faulty methodology and inappropriate use of data by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the American Society of Criminology, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The FBI recommends against use of its crime statistics for directly comparing cities as Morgan Quitno does in its "Most Dangerous Cities" rankings. This is due to the many factors that influence crime, such as population density and the degree of urbanization, modes of transportation of highway system, economic conditions, and citizens' attitudes toward crime.

Cities of Illinois are not included in this ranking, due to a disparity in the way Illinois State police and the FBI report rape cases. Other cities may be excluded because of lack of some data.

In October 2007 the American Society of Criminology, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation asked the publisher to reconsider promotion of the book – specifically, "their inaccurate and inflammatory press release labeling cities as 'safest' and 'most dangerous'" – because the rankings are "baseless and damaging." In November 2007 the executive board of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) approved a resolution opposing the development of city crime rankings from FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs). The resolution states,

These rankings represent an irresponsible misuse of the data and do groundless harm to many communities [and] work against a key goal of our society, which is a better understanding of crime-related issues by both scientists and the public.

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