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Anthony Marino has been around for a while. He is a retired South Jersey Transportation Authority administrator and an adjunct professor at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey — and he just returned from a golf outing in ever-popular Myrtle Beach, S.C.

He also wrote chapters on crime and transportation in the recently published book, “Casino Gaming in Atlantic City: A Thirty Year Retrospective.”

His golf outing prompted some thoughts on crime (Tony’s always thinking about crime), and he noted something interesting in a recent e-mail:

“The upcoming summit here in AC will focus on ‘safety in Atlantic City.’ It is interesting to note that we recently spent a week golfing in a resort community that in recent years has had a significantly higher crime rate than AC.

In the most recent year, that data from both communities are available on-line (2006), Myrtle Beach’s crime rate was 201.6 while Atlantic City’s was 132.7. Of course, both are resorts with small year-round populations that have huge visitor volumes, so both have very misleading rates.

But it is interesting that most South Jersey golfers have no ‘perception’ problems with Myrtle Beach crime, while many of the same folks still think of their local resort community as having “a safety problem!”

An excellent point.

Tony also notes:

“Atlantic City is a relatively safe city, particularly for tourists, and has been throughout the gaming era when we adjust standard crime rates by adding the huge volume of tourists and commuters to the population base at risk of crime. But even the very dramatic decrease in standard (unadjusted) uniform crime rates that occurred in the resort in the last 20 years has gone largely unnoticed by most observers. The standard rates for Atlantic City are now in the same range as ‘safe’ resort communities like Avalon and Beach Haven.

Perceptions of high crime risk persist in part because the general public remains unaware of actual crime trends in Atlantic City. Hopefully, the data presented in my chapter can help to change that perception.”

Check out the book. It’s available for purchase online at www.stockton.edu/gaming.

And thanks again, Tony, for being today’s guest blogger.

2 comments:

• weisenthal (293) posts 8:58 pm

  Mr Perskie, you seem like a big guy in your picture. Yet, if as you contend, it's relatively safe, take a walk down Atlantic Ave. any night after 9 or 10 o'clock, and see how you fare. Better tell your people where you are going, if you intend to go there then. Better yet, walk around Showboat and the Taj at that same time. Yow! Real safe. Look out! It's the Langford voters. Take cover!

• B4real (371) posts 12:57 pm

  Hogwash! Atlantic City is as safe as Avalon...yeah right, and pigs fly. I know so many people who have been mugged (including myself), robbed, beaten, had bicycles and lawnmowers stolen, property defaced, even a relative robbed, beaten and murdered in the Trump Marina garage. Walk down Atlantic Avenue past the walk and within minutes you'll have 5 brotha's trying to sell you crack cocaine. B4Real

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