Posted on 09/04/2013 6:47:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This weekend, the New York Times' Nick Madigan called Florida a "hothouse of corruption," reporting the Sunshine State saw the greatest number of people convicted of public corruption between 2000 and 2010.
That's technically true. But it's not the full story.
To get a true sense of the most corrupt state, we need to know how many convictions there have been on a population basis.
So we went back to Justice Department data cited by Madigan, to see which states saw the greatest number of convictions per 100,000 (Madigan actually appears to cite slightly outdated data; the latest covers the period between 2002 and 2011).
No. 1?
Louisiana, with nearly 9 convictions per 100,000 people.
The Dakotas are runners up.
The states with the fewest conviction rates were South Carolina, Oregon, Washington, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Utah, each with no more than 1.3 convictions per 100,000.
And Florida? Only the 20th-most corrupt, with 3.28 convictions per 100,000 — basically, just a bit above average.
Here's the full chart:
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
California. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Yes, a lot of corrupt politicians are never charged.
I used to live in Massachusetts where almost no politician is convicted of anything in a state court. Three Speakers of the House in succession were convicted in federal court however.
The same appears to be true in Illinois except there it has been three governors in a row. None convicted in state courts. All convicted in federal courts.
I would argue that the top five most politically corrupt states includes Massachusetts and Illinois.
Flip this stat and you are about there. Measuring corruption by the number of convictions is like measuring the number of cockroaches in a house using a camera at noon.
A LACK of convictions tells me nobody is willing to take anyone to court.
Washington State is as corrupt as they come. The environmentalists are buying up land after bullying people off of it first. The Forest and Fish law calls for a 250 foot setback from all water’s edges. Confiscation on a massive scale. County and State colludes to scam landowners all the time here.
Assessments? Every year things flip - your house goes down in value, but your land value goes up, then the next year the house drops in value, but the land goes up.
The corruption is INSTITUTIONAL. All elections are fixed D+5%, which means if you are an R, you have to win by AT LEAST 6% for the election to go to a recount.
I would no sooner do business in WA state than sell my kids into slavery. I’ve instructed them all to run, not walk, away from this state once they are 18.
Great place to backpack and kayak. Lousy place to live. Meanest people in the US outside of New Jersey.
By my measurement, this make LA the least corrupt, since they actually prosecute corrupt officials.
Exactly.
Maine is one of those legally corrupt states. Run by plutocrats from out of state with trust funds and family monies, most of the state is owned by leftist trust babies. For Pete’s sake the largest paper is owned by a leftist’s boyfriend/husband chellie pingree. Her daughter is now working herself up the power ladder to grace our fair state with more totalitarian regulation.
....clearly uninformed... look at California’s ranking....
LOL!
It does seem a strange way to measure, but NH is near the bottom of the list for corruption.
My two cents: Those states near the bottom are probably accurately among the least corrupt, but at the top and in the middle a lot depends on enforcement.
I suspect maybe the political culture in "less corrupt" MN and neighboring "more corrupt" ND and SD isn't that different, but a few bad apples get caught by good enforcement an,d because of their low population, the bad apples make the Dakotas look more corrupt than they really are.
The researchers studied more than 25,000 convictions of public officials for violation of federal corruption laws between 1976 and 2008 as well as patterns in state spending to develop a corruption index that estimates the most and least corrupt states in the union. Based on this method, the the most corrupt states are:1. Mississippi [#7 on the Business Insider list]
2. Louisiana [#1 on the Business Insider list]
3. Tennessee [#17 on the Business Insider list]
4. Illinois [#16 on the Business Insider list]
5. Pennsylvania [#14 on the Business Insider list]
6. Alabama [#8 on the Business Insider list]
7. Alaska [#5 on the Business Insider list]
8. South Dakota [#3 on the Business Insider list]
9. Kentucky [#4 on the Business Insider list]
10. Florida [#19 on the Business Insider list]....spending in these states was different than their less corrupt counterparts. According to the report, “states with higher levels of corruption are likely to favor construction, salaries, borrowing, correction, and police protection at the expense of social sectors such as education, health and hospitals.”
If New York is not even in the top 10, this country is in an even more dire straights than I imagine....
Was surprised that Connecticut didn't make the list either, given the number of incarcerated mayors and governors as a percentage of municipalities and the state population as a whole.
Probably explains why Illinois is not higher up the list.
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