Newton, Massachusetts apparently likes the view from the top. For the second consecutive year, Newton has earned the title of America's Safest City. The announcement.... Newton, Massachusetts apparently likes the view from the top. For the second consecutive year, Newton has earned the title of America's Safest City. The announcement was made in the new edition of City Crime Rankings, an annual reference book of crime statistics and rankings slated for publication this week. The results of the 12th annual Safest City Award were announced today by Morgan Quitno Press, a Lawrence, Kansas-based publishing and research company. At the opposite end of the crime scale, Camden, New Jersey repeated as the nation's Most Dangerous City.

The Morgan Quitno Safest City Award is based on a city's rate for six basic crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. All cities of 75,000+ populations that reported crime data to the FBI for the six crime categories were included in the rankings. In this year's survey, 369 cities were considered for the award. Final 2004 statistics, released by the FBI on October 17, 2005, were used to determine the rankings.

Joining Newton at the top of the Safest City rankings are Clarkstown, NY; Amherst, NY; Mission Viejo, CA and Brick Township, NJ. Newton is located just west of Boston.

At the opposite end of the Morgan Quitno crime scale, Camden, New Jersey ranks as the nation's most dangerous city for the second consecutive year. Located across the Delaware river from Philadelphia, Camden had the highest violent crime, murder and robbery rates among cities of 75,000 or more population.

Trailing Camden on the more dangerous end of the crime rankings (in ascending order) are Detroit, MI; St. Louis, MO, Flint, MI and Richmond, VA.

In addition to ranking the safety of cities, Morgan Quitno Press also examined crime in metropolitan areas. For the first time, Logan, UT-ID tops the rankings as America's Safest Metropolitan Area. The Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI metropolitan division ranked as the most dangerous.

The findings of the 12th annual Safest City and Metropolitan Area Awards are featured in City Crime Rankings 12th Edition, an annual reference book from Morgan Quitno Press. The newly updated edition of this volume will be available November 22nd. The Safest City and Metropolitan Area rankings are one of six Morgan Quitno Awards announced annually by the company. These other annual announcements designate the nation's Most Livable State (a state quality of life survey); the Healthiest State (a survey of state health care); the Safest and Most Dangerous States (a state crime survey); the Smartest State (a state education survey) and the Most Improved State (a survey of state trends.)