Morgan Quitno Press has ranked Camden as one of the top ten most dangerous cities in the United States since 1998, when they first included cities with populations less than 100,000. Camden was ranked as the third-most dangerous city in 2002, and the most dangerous city overall in 2004 and 2005. It improved to the fifth spot for the 2006 and 2007 rankings but rose to number two in 2008 and to the most dangerous spot in 2009. Morgan Quitno based its rankings on crime statistics reported to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation in six categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and auto theft. In 2011 in
The Nation, journalist
Chris Hedges described Camden as "the physical refuse of postindustrial America", plagued with homelessness, drug trafficking, prostitution, robbery, looting, constant violence, and an overwhelmed police force (which in 2011 lost nearly half of its officers to budget-related layoffs).