N.H. lowest, Nevada highest in crime

LOS ANGELES, March 23 (UPI) -- New Hampshire had the lowest crime ranking among the 50 U.S. states in 2008, while Nevada was ranked highest, a survey released Monday indicates.

New Hampshire, with 15 murders out of a population of 1.3 million last year, led all U.S. states in crime rankings under a formula devised by a Florida Atlantic University criminologist and published by CQ Press of Los Angeles.

In a release, CQ Press said New Hampshire scored highly because it also had a low rate for rapes and sported the nation's second-lowest ratio of aggravated assaults.

The Granite State was followed by nearby New England states Vermont and Maine at the low end of the crime rankings scale.

Nevada's murder rate was nearly seven times higher than New Hampshire's, CQ Press said, and reported 43 rapes per 100,000 residents in 2008 compared with a national average of 30.

Nevada was followed by Louisiana and South Carolina as the most crime-ridden states, the survey found.