Military towns are among the countries most dangerous

I just read an interesting article at dailyfinance.com that seems to think that military towns are amongst some of the most dangerous towns in the country. Ive never lived in a military town so I decided to look more into this to learn why this might be the case.

In the article it lists off some of the most dangerous military towns: Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, the Patton Road near Alabama's Redstone Arsenal, Indiana's Grissom Joint Air Reserve Base, Mississippi's Meridian Naval Air Station, California's Presidio of Monterey, Washington's Ault Field and Hawaii's Kaneohe Station. These cities/towns average about 455-759 property crimes per 1000 people! Im sure that Fort Hood or the bases in Colorado, Virginia Beach or Florida could be much better. This is almost 20 times more than the national average of 35 property crime reports per 1000 persons.

The article asks "So why do these ten neighborhoods have such high crime rates? According to Andrew Schiller, founder and president of NeighborhoodScout, the answer may lie in the demographics of the American military. Military bases tend to have high concentrations of young, single men living together in very close quarters. Schiller has also found similar property crime spikes in other areas -- like college student neighborhoods -- that have large concentrations of single males living together. One possible explanation for these surges in crime rates could be that young men, separated from their parents, wives, families and communities, may feel more temptation to commit certain types of crimes."

Suggestions one might consider if living in these areas: Get a dog, lock your doors with quality locks, have an alarm installed on your home, leave lights on in your home, get to know your neighbors and start a neighborhood watch program.