Sinning In St. Louis? City Ranked Fourth For Vice In U.S.

ST. LOUIS, MO — The 2017 rankings are out, and St. Louis is the fourth most sinful city in the U.S., according to a study by the personal finance site WalletHub. Of 182 cities, only Las Vegas, Orlando and Miami placed higher. The study looked at seven distinct categories of misdeeds, including anger, jealousy, excess, avarice, lust, vanity and laziness — a somewhat updated take on the seven deadly sins found in some Christian teachings.

To look at something as subjective as sin, researchers first decided on a number of proxy variables that they believed would closely correlate with each category. For example, to measure anger, they totaled up violent crimes data, examined the bullying rate in local schools, and counted hate crimes incidents and the number of hate groups per capita. To get at lust, they tallied active Tinder accounts, looked at the teen birth rate, and counted how many Ashley Madison users were registered in a given city. (Ashley Madison is an adult dating site geared toward helping married people cheat on their spouses.) To understand how jealous a city's population might be, researchers counted thefts and identity fraud complaints.

St. Louis ranked second in three categories: anger, jealousy and excess. Reachers found St. Louis has the second highest rate of violent crime in the U.S., next only to Detroit. The city also ranked high in theft and fraud, as well as a series of measures meant to approximate excess: obesity rates, fast-food restaurants per capita, opioid prescription rates, drug overdose deaths, and debt-to-income ratio.

University of Indianapolis professor Amanda Miller was one expert consulted for the study. What most people consider sinful is socially constructed, she said. "When I think of 'sin' I often think of 'deviance' though the two are not necessarily synonymous. In large part, the culture can play a role in setting norms of what is or is not acceptable." When people feel less attached to their communities or have few economic avenues open to them, Miller believes that can increase deviant behavior.

Other behaviors like alcoholism or drug addiction can be triggered by a genetic predisposition toward addiction or compulsive behavior. Family background, life experiences, and laws can also encourage or constrain such behavior.

Take infidelity as an example. "If there are more cheaters it’s probably because there are more people, more anonymous places to go, fewer people you know who would see you (and tell your spouse or partner), and fewer laws that would punish you for cheating with real penalties," said University of Washington sociology professor Pepper Schwartz, another of the study's experts. "The penalty for adultery in Saudi Arabia is usually death — that's pretty discouraging. In Georgia, the person who cheats pays more money in a divorce settlement (it is not a no fault divorce state.) In New York — no problem."

In addition to St. Louis, two other Missouri cities were on the list. Springfield ranked 20th and Kansas City came in at number 50. The least sinful cities in the the United States? West Valley City, Utah; Brownsville, Texas; Pearl City, Hawaii; and South Burlington, Vermont. Check out the complete list here or view the map below.

WalletHub's Most 'Sinful' Cities

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