They looked at violent crimes like murder, aggravated assault, robbery, and rape, and decided that the most dangerous city in Texas is two hours away from Lufkin.

Beaumont doesn't have the crime rate of cities like St. Louis or Chicago or Los Angeles, but it does have a higher crime rate than any other city in Texas.

247wallst.com says Beaumont is quite a bit more dangerous than the U.S. as a whole with a violent crime rate of 1,113 incidents per 100,000 people, and the country has a rate of 386 per 100,000.  In 2016 Beaumont had 14 murders, and that was way above the total for other Texas cities.  The study said Texas as a whole had the 17th highest violent crime rate that year, which is the most recent year that all of the data was available.

There are a few bad apples in any bunch, but don't you feel like Texas is a safe place overall?  It seems like a great place to raise kids to me, and I feel safe in my house as a single mom.  Maybe I'm living in a bubble and don't think about crime as much as I should.  But focusing on the positives about the state of Texas and all of our awesome neighbors in East Texas is just way more fun.

Here's some good news.  The study found that violent crime has been steadily declining across the country, and now it's about half of what it was when it peaked in 1991.  Good!

It's probably not a good idea to walk through a dark alley with cash hanging out of your purse, but at least the risks are lower than they used to be.  And we hope that trend continues in Lufkin and Nacogdoches.

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