Arizona Ranked 20th Most Corrupt State by Daily Beast. Congratulations?

By James King Thu., May 13 2010 at 10:53 AM

Categories: News

www.abc.net.au

There's a new feather for Arizona to stick in its cap: The Daily Beast has ranked Arizona Number 20 on its list of the United States' most corrupt states.

If you ask us, this is good news -- we thought we'd at least get some top-10 love.

The rankings don't exclusively focus on the antics of a state's slimy politicos -- although, that is a factor -- it also looks at crimes like fraud, racketeering, embezzlement, and forgery that are carried out by private citizens.

Overall, Arizona was ranked 20th, but in the individual categories of specific types of corruption, Arizona fared a little better -- in most categories, anyway.

In terms of public corruption, Arizona was only ranked 34th.

This leads us to believe that the rankings are either flawed (Illinois and Rod Blagojevich are only ranked 47th on the Beast's corruption barometer) or the folks at the Beast never have heard of America's self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff," and his puppy who's currently running for attorney general.

Arizona ranks highest when it comes to forgery and counterfeiting, coming in with a fourth.

Tennessee got top honors as the most corrupt state in the country, with Virginia, Mississippi, Delaware, and North Carolina rounding out the top five.

New Hampshire is ranked the least corrupt state.

For the complete list, click here.