ROSS KEMP ON GANGS: ST.LOUIS, USA PART 3 OF 3
SEASON 2: EPISODE 3
St. Louis is home to one of America's most active and aggressive gang cultures. Young men are dying on the streets of the city at the rate of one every two weeks, helping make it one of the 5 most violent places in the US. Ross Kemp discovers that the local gangs have taken their influence from the legendary Crips and Bloods of LA and put their own St Louis spin on things.
This has resulted in the emergence of hundreds of small outfits fighting vicious turf wars on the ghetto streets from which they conduct their business as drugs dealers and petty criminals.
The city of St. Louis has one of the highest per-capita crime rates in the United States.
According to FBI statistics it ranked third in 2005 in the country's highest murder rates for cities above 250,000 (trailing Baltimore, Maryland and Detroit, Michigan).
According to Morgan Quitno's "America's safest/most dangerous cities" report, St. Louis has ranked among nation's worst three in per capita crime - 3rd in 2000, 3rd in 2001, 1st in 2002, 2nd in 2003, 3rd in 2004, 3rd in 2005, and topping the list again in 2006.
The Morgan Quitno report has been criticised for its methodology by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the city's mayor. The report does not adjust city rankings to account for whether or not suburban areas (often affluent, low-crime areas) are included within the city's legal boundaries. When comparing crime rates by Metropolitan Statistical Areas, defined by the U.S. Census Bureau to include suburban areas, St. Louis ranks much lower.
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