Crime and Memphis seem to be said in the same breath more often than they should. Former Memphis resident Amber Mitchell said she moved out of the city to Bartlett after having her first child, when she felt it was time to stop fighting a losing battle.
"In the few years I lived in Midtown, my car was broken into twice," she said. "Once at the Cancer Survivors Memorial and once in front of my home."
She also suspects that her faithful golden retriever once saved her from a home invasion.
"You could actually see footprints inside my kitchen at the back door, but they didn't go any further than a few steps," Mitchell said. "I'm certain the dog scared the person off."
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports from 2013 shows that nearly 40 percent of the more than 300 murders and non-negligent manslaughters reported in the state of Tennessee occurred in Memphis. According to the same report, Nashville accounts for just under 11 percent of all murders and non-negligent manslaughters in the state. Both cities have about 600,000 residents, each accounting for about 10 percent of the state’s population.
With similar populations and widely different crime rates, one might wonder what the difference is between these two cities.
Dr. Wanda Rushing, sociology researcher and professor at the University of Memphis, offered some insight into that question.
“The first thing I’m going to look at is the educational attainment for people ages 25 and over and what percentage of people have a bachelor’s degree or higher,” she said. “To me, that’s the biggest predictor.”
The 2013 American Community Survey from the United States Census found an estimated 25 percent of Memphians had attained a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to nearly 37 percent of Nashvillians.
Rushing said that studies repeatedly prove lower levels of education are linked to higher crime rates and poverty, and the 25-34-year-old age group is of particular importance.
The same survey estimates 26 percent of Memphis residents in that age group have a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to 47 percent of Nashville residents in the same age group.
Those in that age group without a degree are more likely to have low-wage jobs or be unemployed and are more likely to be involved in criminal activity, explained Rushing.
Looking again to the American Community Survey, it estimates more than 27 percent of all Memphians had lived below the poverty line in the previous 12 months. When you break that down into age groups, it’s even more shocking. Nearly half of all school-aged children lived below the poverty line as well.
In Nashville, slightly more than 18 percent of its population and less than 31 percent of school-aged children were below the poverty line.
For anyone concerned about crime, Rushing said ensuring all children have a strong educational foundation, beginning at the pre-school level, is a good place to start.
She said that children who begin their lives in impoverished households are already behind by the time they start kindergarten because they have had less exposure to books, letters, and numbers and their vocabularies are often weaker.
“For changes in these areas, like poverty and crime, the state of Tennessee needs to do better” with our public education, said Rushing.
The state of Tennessee does offer voluntary pre-school and Head Start programs to economically disadvantaged families, and designated Title I schools that offer pre-school are open to all children who live in the appropriate school district and meet the age requirements. Not all students who apply to these programs are guaranteed placement.
