If you’re standing on or near the corner of North Avenue and Belair Road in Baltimore, you have a 1 in 7 chance of being a victim of a violent crime. At least that’s what Dr. Andrew Schiller, a geographer and founder of NeighborhoodScout.com has found in a recent study.

Two sections of Baltimore made America’s “25 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods” list, published by Schiller using FBI crime data from 2005, 2006 and 2007, synthesized with population numbers and (according to a description of his methodology) controlled to account for exceptionally violent or peaceful years.

North and Belair is a warzone, apparently, as is Orleans Street between I-83 and Central Avenue.

The thing I find a little strange about these neighborhoods’ inclusion in the list is that even though NeighborhoodScout is marketed to residential homebuyers (the slogan is, “The right order is everything. Find your perfect neighborhood first”) , neither of these two neighborhoods is particularly residential.

The Route 40 corridor is filled with small-scale industrial outfits and car repair shops, and although there are a few public housing projects in Schiller’s area, we’re not exactly talking about a place where people go looking for their first home. North and Belair, similarly, is right in front of the city’s municipal cemetary, which is huge, and just north of the newly-revamped American Brewery project. Sure, in nearby Berea there are tons of vacancies and serious drug violence problems, but Schiller’s definition of the neighborhood includes only about 12 rowhouse blocks.

More important, I think, is this — from the why-is-this-report-important? section of Schiller’s methodology description: “Developers, marketers and retailers frequently use NeighborhoodScout’s data to determine the underlying characteristics of a neighborhood’s commercial viability or demographic appeal prior to investing in a project or opening a retail location.”

The Orleans Street neighborhood includes Oldtown Mall, a once-busy retail destination that the city is currently pumping money into by acquiring properties and trying to find a developer to clean it up.  So I suppose the city, in its search for an investor to turn Oldtown around, hopes that no one “frequently” looks at Schiller’s list for advice on where to buy.

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Not that you would do this, dear readers, but the Maryland Insurance Administration wants you to know that setting your car on fire for the insurance money isn’t the answer to getting out of auto debt.

We are apparently in the tail end of “National Arson Week,” and MIA Commissioner Ralph S. Tyler says burning up your car for the insurance reimbursement is “both dangerous and illegal.”

I guess that’s why some people hire someone else to do the job. According to the Wall Street Journal, the going rate for having someone else drop a lit match on your car is $500.

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When Bernie Madoff arrives in prison, he likely won’t be the most popular inmate.

According to some experts Bloomberg interviewed — including a former inmate who advises convicts on surviving time behind bars — the other prisoners are bound to blame Bernie, the mastermind behind the largest Ponzi scheme in history, for the Wall Street crash.

“All the guys there will have wives or parents who are losing their homes or their jobs or who can’t send money to them anymore. Everybody’s going to be blaming Bernie,” said Larry Levine, owner of the Los Angeles firm Wall Street Prison Consultants.

One forensic psychiatrist told Bloomberg that Madoff should expect to receive tons of threatening mail. His digs won’t be as plush as his Manhattan penthouse, but he may get the benefit of being in a prison system that is less violent because murders and rapes are generally prosecuted at the state level not the federal level.

One way he can make friends in the big house is if he offers his expertise to the other inmates.

“Offering inmates help with legal or financial needs might give Madoff a certain ‘diplomatic immunity,’ said Levine, who said he acted as a jailhouse lawyer for other convicts while behind bars.”

Madoff will still have access to life outside of prison through access to cable television and possibly e-mail, and he’ll likely have to hold a job, which would pay between 12 cents and 40 cents an hour. In that case, it looks like he’ll be paying his victims back a few pennies at a time.

DANIELLE ULMAN, Business Writer

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Today, WYPR host Marc Steiner speaks out on his past work as a juvenile counselor and what he thinks needs to be done in Baltimore on the Open Society Institute’s “Audacious Ideas” blog.

In Make things work NOW, he writes:

What I am proposing is that the city, state, philanthropies and businesses spend millions of dollars in gang prevention and youth intervention. Hire, train and supervise hundreds of ex-felons to work in the streets with youth and families. Take the health department experiment of Operation Safe Streets and expand it city-wide. In one sector where OSS is working there hasn’t been a murder in a year. We don’t have time to do this piecemeal.

Read Marc’s proposal and tell us what you think.

JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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No matter who delivers the Baltimore Police Department’s monthly report to the city’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council or what that report contains, Baltimore City Circuit Court Clerk Frank M. Conaway Sr. usually has a probing question or two.

Not at Wednesday’s meeting, where burly Deputy Commissioner Anthony E. Barksdale reviewed last year’s drop in violent crime and this year’s decrease in homicides in Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III’s stead.

“I had some questions, but…” said the much slighter Conaway, eyeing Barksdale’s significant profile from a seat away and drawing chuckles from council members.

“Want me to charge him with intimidation … just by being there?” State’s Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy asked.

Almost an hour later, after a briefing by the city health commissioner on controversial heroin treatment, buprenorphine, the meeting adjourned. On his way out, Conaway bid farewell to Barksdale.

“Good to see you,” Conaway said. Barksdale laughed and acknowledged the clerk.

After Conaway left the room, Jessamy called across the table to Barksdale:

“Tell Fred he has to bring you to every meeting.”

BRENDAN KEARNEY, Legal Affairs Writer

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