A snapshot of violent America

UNITED STATES - Camden, New Jersey, was the most dangerous city in the US for the second consecutive year, according to an annual survey.

It ranked the rates of serious crimes including murders, rapes and robberies in 369 US cities, based on 2004 statistics reported by the FBI.

Camden, a city of 80,000 people near Philadelphia, was listed as the most dangerous, followed by Detroit, Michigan; St Louis, Missouri; and Flint, Michigan, the survey said.

Camden's murder rate was more than 10 times the national average and its robbery rate was seven times the national average.

The safest city, also for the second year in a row, was the Boston suburb of Newton, Massachusetts, which had no murders and the lowest overall crime and car theft rates in the nation.

Newton was followed by Clarkstown, New York; Amherst, New York; and Mission Viejo, California.

Camden prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi said the city had been taking steps to fight crime and urged the survey's authors to "consider the negative ramifications" of its report.

Last year's ranking prompted a developer to pull out of a hotel deal, while the number of applications to Rutgers University's Camden campus dropped dramatically, he said.

For the first eight months of this year, the number of murders fell 44 per cent, Sarubbi said.

Camden police drew criticism this summer when they failed for two days to find three missing boys who suffocated in the trunk of a car parked in the victims' yard.

Tale of two cities

* BEST: Newton, Massachusetts

No murders and the lowest overall theft rate in the US.

Average household income (2000): US$86,052 ($126,454), with 2.9 per cent unemployment.

Ethnicity: 2 per cent black and 2.5 per cent Hispanic.

Two in three people have a degree.

* WORST: Camden, New Jersey

Murder rate more than 10 times the national average and robbery rate seven times the national average.

Average Household income (2000): US$23,421, with 15.9pc jobless.

More than half of Camden is Afro-Caribbean and 39pc is Hispanic.

One in 20 has a degree.

- REUTERS