SEQUIM — Be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Be especially afraid of home security system salespeople slinging statistics.
A kerfuffle last fall over Sequim’s rank among Washington cities for violent crime was based on 2012 data posted to the Internet by Home Security Shield of Columbus, Ohio.
It called Sequim the 14th “most dangerous” city in the state.
The company used statistics gathered by the FBI but that the firm weighted with a formula it didn’t explain.
It drew its raw numbers from the FBI annual Uniform Crime Report, which the FBI replaced in 2013 with the National Incident-Based Reporting System.
The FBI said it switched “to improve the quality of crime data.”
Figures for 2014 are available only for the first half of the year in cities of 100,000 people or more.
Complete statistics for the year are expected sometime this summer.
In tiny gray type, the Home Security Shield website says:
“For the most accurate understanding of the crime rates . . . Home Security Shield recommends readers research further on their own.”
Well, the Peninsula Daily News as done the work for you.
The company raised eyebrows last year when it put Sequim into 14th place for violent crime, sandwiched between SeaTac and Centralia.
It said Sequim residents had about one chance in 16 of being victims of violence or property crimes in 2012.
By early 2015, the 3-year-old statistics had become a social media sensation on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Danger on Dungeness?
Home Security Shield used Sequim’s population (6,710) and its violent crimes (37) to get a rate of 5.5 violent crimes per 1,000 residents.
Property crimes (378) came to a rate of 56.4 per 1,000.
Violent and property crimes together produced a rate of 61.9 crimes per 1,000, all according to FBI data drawn from local law enforcement reports from 2012.
But who’s counting?
Not Home Security Shield, for if it had crunched the numbers for 2013, the company could have published the more alarming figure of 58 property crimes per 1,000.
But more about that below.
Washington property crime seemed most rampant in Tukwila, which showed 3,309 property crimes for its 19,800 people, or 167 crimes per 1,000 residents
Rounding out the state’s Top 10: Tacoma; Burien and Lakewood (tie); Grand Coulee; Airway Heights; Spokane, Port Orchard and Yakima (tie); Seattle; Omak, Shelton and Wapato (tie); and Bremerton and Fife (tie).
Cities ranked for violent crimes had many of the same suspects.
Yet Washington’s worst cities didn’t make it into Home Security Shield’s nationwide Top 20.
That list was topped by Darby, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb of about 11,000 people. The largest city: Detroit.
Nearest to the North Olympic Peninsula was Oakland, Calif., to which Home Security Shield awarded 12th place with 19.8 violent crimes per 1,000 residents.
Sequim peril plummets
Do the numbers actually measure danger?
In Sequim’s case, no, said its chief of police, Bill Dickinson
Sequim’s violent crime rate of 5.5 reports per 1,000 residents in 2012 was bad enough for 12th place — not the 14th place touted by Home Security Shield.
But if you count the cities who tied at various levels, Sequim drops to 17th place.
And by 2013, Sequim’s violent crimes had plunged to 2 per 1,000 residents, a tie in our state with Arlington, Poulsbo and Washougal for 36th place.
When ties are factored in, Sequim plummets to 70th place.
Sequim police recorded two rapes, two robberies and nine aggravated assaults in 2013.
By contrast, Union Gap — whose population was only slightly smaller than Sequim’s at 6,059 — recorded two homicides in 2013.
But because it had two fewer total crimes of violence, it held 38th place when ties were excluded.
Go figure.
That’s just what the Peninsula Daily News did, examining the FBI statistics for 2012 and 2013.
The newspaper’s methodology: We divided each city’s total number of violent or property crimes by its population rounded to the nearest 100 people.
That produced a crimes-per-1,000-residents ratio that we rounded to the nearest tenth.
We made no judgment about which cities are “most dangerous.”
As for Sequim, Dickinson said: “You have to look at what that data means. I did that.
“I pulled all of our violent crimes to see what they were, why that number was as high as it was.
“Most — not all — involved people who knew each other.
Did we have a number of those? Yes, we did.
“But I would suggest that people would not be afraid that someone was going to creep into their home and rape them.”
Actually, Sequim in 2013 reported one rape complaint per 3,313 residents.
Meanwhile, Sequim’s property crime rate is high, Dickinson said, because the city is a demographic anomaly: a small urban core packed with large retail stores surrounded by a two-countywide residential zone.
That means lots of people come to Sequim to shop. And to shoplift.
Sequim held 23rd place for property crimes per 1,000 residents among Washington cities with 5,000 or more people in 2013, down from 19th place in 2012, according to FBI statistics as processed by the PDN.
Accounting for the most recent ranking were 383 property crimes, 308 of them thefts. Sixty-one were burglaries; 14 were auto thefts; three were arsons.
Outsider sinners
“There are far more people living around our city than in it,” Dickinson said. “We have all of the big-box stores. Most small towns don’t have that much retail center.
“People come here to steal because this is where the things are to steal.”
Meanwhile on Clallam County’s West End, Forks in 2012 was the safest among cities on the FBI’s list with five violent crimes, or 1.4 violent crimes per thousand. Its rate more than doubled to 12 crimes, or 3.2 per thousand, in 2013.
As for life in Jefferson County, Prosecuting Attorney Mike Haas said, “I’d rather live here than in most counties on the planet.
“I’ve got children, and I have no problem with their walking to the grocery store at any time.”
Small communities like Port Townsend, Forks and Sequim, Haas added, are statistically vulnerable to relatively small blips in the numbers of any crime.
“You’ve got such a small population base that just having three more aggravated assaults could skew the numbers.”
Port Townsend nonetheless held 30th place for violent crimes and 76th place for property crimes in 2013. Most of the latter were aggravated assaults, meaning attacks in which victims were injured.
To see the FBI figures for yourself, visit www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s.
But if you suffer from math anxiety, be wary.
Actually, be afraid.
Be very afraid.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
