Oakland does have high crime rates, when you look at both violent and non-violent crimes.  According to the MetroCrime 2008 Rankings, Oakland came in 13th worst out of 388 U.S. metro areas.

The CQ Press produces their rankings based on FBI crime statistics for six crimes:  murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft.

For each crime type, CQ calculates the number of local crimes/100,000 population as well as variances vs. national averages.  Then CQ adds these six variances together to issue the metro results.

We’re not saying that violent crimes aren’t important.  However burglaries and motor vehicle thefts also contribute to quality of life, and should be included when assessing Oakland’s crime issues.

With this 13th ranking given to Oakland, we don’t have much farther to fall…sigh.