Louisiana has a lot of qualities, however, low crime isn’t one of them. The state is plagued by the violent crime endemic to the southeastern region of the United States, and was named the most violent state in the country by USA Today for logging the highest murder rate in the country. Despite the state’s reputation, a handful of Louisiana cities are relatively safe, posting admirably low crime rates that stand in contrast to the situation, statewide.
Louisiana’s safest city is Mandeville, a small city separated from New Orleans by Lake Pontchartrain. Home to many musicians, Mandeville is well removed from the violence plaguing its neighbor across the lake, recorded a low violent crime rate of 1.29 per 1,000 in 2018, along with a property crime rate below the national level.
Covington earns the #2 spot on the list. The parish seat of St. Tammany Parish logged a 2018 violent crime rate of about half of the statewide rate, as well a slightly-below-average level of property crime.
We head north for #3 Minden, a city of 12K in Webster Parish. The small city logged a violent crime rate less-than-half of the national rate (and under a third of the Louisiana rate) in 2018, and its property crime rate is a notch below national levels.
4th in the ranking is Gretna, the 2nd largest city in Jefferson Parish located on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Though Gretna’s crime levels are a bit higher than the three preceding entries on the list, they are nonetheless significantly below statewide rates.
Abbeville, the parish seat of Vermilion Parish, closes out the ranking of Louisiana’s 5 safest cities. While the city has an issue with violent crime, its property crime rate is the 2nd lowest in the state.
Louisiana’s Safest Cities
LA City Population Violent
crimeProperty
crimeLaw enforcement
employeesTotal crimes Crime rate per 1,000 Violent crimes per 1,000 Property crimes per 1,000 Law enforcement per 1,000
1 Mandeville 12371 16 217 48 233 18.83 1.29 17.54 3.88
2 Covington 10658 30 223 40 253 23.74 2.81 20.92 3.75
3 Minden 12215 18 251 33 269 22.02 1.47 20.55 2.70
4 Gretna 17965 86 555 129 641 35.68 4.79 30.89 7.18
5 Abbeville 12279 89 241 33 330 26.88 7.25 19.63 2.69
6 De Ridder 10820 10 301 30 311 28.74 0.92 27.82 2.77
7 Kenner 67556 155 2040 229 2195 32.49 2.29 30.20 3.39
8 Baker 13487 44 335 31 379 28.10 3.26 24.84 2.30
9 Slidell 27973 87 815 73 902 32.25 3.11 29.14 2.61
10 Thibodaux 14745 68 534 60 602 40.83 4.61 36.22 4.07
11 Ruston 22274 82 628 49 710 31.88 3.68 28.19 2.20
12 Eunice 10073 44 487 42 531 52.72 4.37 48.35 4.17
13 Sulphur 20250 95 879 70 974 48.10 4.69 43.41 3.46
14 Broussard 12672 52 500 34 552 43.56 4.10 39.46 2.68
15 Morgan City 11066 96 535 50 631 57.02 8.68 48.35 4.52
16 Pineville 14415 91 796 72 887 61.53 6.31 55.22 4.99
17 Bogalusa 11730 124 584 53 708 60.36 10.57 49.79 4.52
18 New Orleans 396374 4611 18063 1457 22674 57.20 11.63 45.57 3.68
19 Shreveport 190808 1588 9884 721 11472 60.12 8.32 51.80 3.78
20 Bossier City 69551 576 2998 192 3574 51.39 8.28 43.11 2.76
21 Lafayette 127592 681 5882 332 6563 51.44 5.34 46.10 2.60
22 Houma 33226 158 1625 92 1783 53.66 4.76 48.91 2.77
23 Baton Rouge 224790 2067 11965 795 14032 62.42 9.20 53.23 3.54
24 Gonzales 10916 62 775 49 837 76.68 5.68 71.00 4.49
25 Natchitoches 17981 159 1141 70 1300 72.30 8.84 63.46 3.89
26 West Monroe 12594 103 1008 73 1111 88.22 8.18 80.04 5.80
27 Monroe 48291 677 3278 175 3955 81.90 14.02 67.88 3.62
28 Crowley 12779 228 916 44 1144 89.52 17.84 71.68 3.44
29 Opelousas 16262 348 1180 57 1528 93.96 21.40 72.56 3.51
30 Alexandria 47238 685 3973 180 4658 98.61 14.50 84.11 3.81
31 Hammond 20550 299 2124 102 2423 117.91 14.55 103.36 4.96
32 Bastrop 10270 138 1006 32 1144 111.39 13.44 97.96 3.12
Methodology
To identify the safest cities, we reviewed the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics. We eliminated any cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI and cities with populations under 10,000. This left 3,381 cities (out of a total of 9,251).
There are two broad classifications of crimes: violent crimes and non-violent crimes. According to the FBI, “Violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses that involve force or threat of force. Property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The object of the theft-type offenses is the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims. ”
We computed the total number of crimes reported by each city by adding violent crimes and property crimes. We then created a crime rate as the number of crimes per 1,000 population. Then we transformed the total crime rate variable so that the skewness was reduced and normalized.
Data from 2,831 law enforcement agencies was then collected to determine police adequacy (TotalCrimes / Number of police employees). We consider that the smaller the police adequacy statistic is, the safer the city is. This variable was also transformed and normalized.
Finally, the two variables were combined to create a safety score for each city.
