These cities ranked the safest in Arizona based on violent crime rates

PHOENIX — A home security company released its fifth annual ranking of each state’s safest cities last week, with Oro Valley, Buckeye and Florence topping the list for Arizona.

Rebecca Edwards, SafeWise security and safety expert, told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Tuesday that the company looked at 2017 FBI crime report statistics, which define violent crime as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

The company ranked 31 Arizona cities, limiting the list to municipalities larger than 16,400 people (the state’s median city population). Property crime rates were used only as tiebreakers.

“Oro Valley is the No. 1 city this year, and they jumped up from No. 2 last year, so they are just improving every year,” Edwards said.

“Buckeye made the No. 2 spot. Last year, they were No. 1, so they moved down.”

Metro Phoenix cities Gilbert (No. 4), Surprise (No. 6), Scottsdale (No. 9), Peoria (No. 17) and Chandler (No. 18) were also ranked in the top 20.

Mesa came in at No. 22 while Tempe was ranked 26th and Glendale 27th.

Yuma, Phoenix and Tucson made up the bottom three.

“The thing that stood out to me, No. 1, is that 90% of cities in our top 20 are repeats for the second year, so the same cities are staying in that range,” Edwards said.

She said Douglas and Goodyear were the only two newcomers to this year’s top 20 list.

She said Apache Junction, up six spots to No. 12, and Nogales, up seven to No. 13, saw the biggest jumps.

About 35% of the state’s cities did not record any counts of murder, she said, but Arizona’s violent crime rate of 4.91 is still above the national average of 4.49.

The state fared worse when it came to property crime with a rate of 32.18 compared to the national average of 27.11.

“Arizona was most afraid of property crime, and that made a lot of sense because the property crime rate across the state is higher than the national average by about five points,” she said.

“And so the experiences that people are having in Arizona do seem to line up with their safety concerns.”

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Ashley Flood contributed to this report.

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