Looking at Arizona’s statewide crime rates, the Copper State doesn’t compare favorably to the rest of the country, recording violent and property crime significantly above national levels in 2018. However, Arizona’s 5 safest cities performed much better than statewide crime figures would suggest, each recording a total crime rate below 15 per 1,000.
Arizona’s safest community is Florence, a historic town that is one of the oldest in the state. While Florence has a rich history, the town distinguishes itself in modern times by earning an excellent safety record. Florence’s total crime rate of 6.20 per 1,000 is less-than-half of that of any other Arizona community’s.
Paradise Valley is Arizona’s 2nd safest municipality, as well as the state’s wealthiest. The town recorded just 3 violent crimes in 2018, resulting in the lowest violent crime rate in the state.
Ranking 3rd is Oro Valley, an affluent suburb of Tucson notable for the many high tech firms headquartered in the town. Oro Valley posted very impressive crime numbers in 2018, including a violent crime rate of 0.38 per 1,000 that is less than 10% of the statewide rate.
Maricopa, a city of nearly 50K in the Gila River Valley, earns Arizona’s 4th spot. The city achieved the 2nd lowest total crime rate in the state in 2018, just 11.96 per 1,000, and falls to #4 only due its lower-than-average ratio of law enforcement-to-residents.
Closing out the list of Arizona’s 5 safest communities is Sahuarita, a town of around 30,000 15 miles south of Tucson that was once colonized by the Spanish. Today, Sahuarita belies its somewhat turbulent history by recording a low violent crime rate of 1.27 per 1,000.
Arizona’s Safest Cities
AZ 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 Florence 25,987 34 127 40 161 6.20 1.31 4.89 1.54
2 Paradise Valley 14,519 3 196 42 199 13.71 0.21 13.50 2.89
3 Oro Valley 44,844 17 610 127 627 13.98 0.38 13.60 2.83
4 Maricopa 48,660 93 489 88 582 11.96 1.91 10.05 1.81
5 Sahuarita 29,896 38 348 50 386 12.91 1.27 11.64 1.67
6 Somerton 16,380 19 218 27 237 14.47 1.16 13.31 1.65
7 Gilbert 247,463 234 3273 386 3507 14.17 0.95 13.23 1.56
8 San Luis 33,074 8 472 54 480 14.51 0.24 14.27 1.63
9 Chino Valley 11,840 42 179 30 221 18.67 3.55 15.12 2.53
10 Lake Havasu City 54,678 88 830 110 918 16.79 1.61 15.18 2.01
11 Prescott Valley 45,337 67 776 96 843 18.59 1.48 17.12 2.12
12 Camp Verde 11,249 31 212 32 243 21.60 2.76 18.85 2.84
13 Surprise 136,611 165 2103 193 2268 16.60 1.21 15.39 1.41
14 Apache Junction 41,245 81 773 88 854 20.71 1.96 18.74 2.13
15 Marana 46,447 33 1076 120 1109 23.88 0.71 23.17 2.58
16 Mesa 504,873 1837 10024 1202 11861 23.49 3.64 19.85 2.38
17 Eloy 19,549 81 351 41 432 22.10 4.14 17.95 2.10
18 Scottsdale 254,961 422 5683 608 6105 23.94 1.66 22.29 2.38
19 Buckeye 71,318 125 1348 125 1473 20.65 1.75 18.90 1.75
20 Peoria 170,177 388 3241 278 3629 21.32 2.28 19.04 1.63
21 Chandler 255,986 606 5430 494 6036 23.58 2.37 21.21 1.93
22 Prescott 43,172 136 896 81 1032 23.90 3.15 20.75 1.88
23 Payson 15,549 63 403 43 466 29.97 4.05 25.92 2.77
24 Nogales 19,973 41 610 65 651 32.59 2.05 30.54 3.25
25 Sierra Vista 42,574 104 1121 86 1225 28.77 2.44 26.33 2.02
26 Goodyear 82,159 203 2081 148 2284 27.80 2.47 25.33 1.80
27 Coolidge 12,815 37 433 39 470 36.68 2.89 33.79 3.04
28 El Mirage 35,733 77 933 64 1010 28.27 2.15 26.11 1.79
29 Show Low 11,156 59 427 39 486 43.56 5.29 38.28 3.50
30 Bullhead City 40,354 149 1444 110 1593 39.48 3.69 35.78 2.73
31 Casa Grande 56,479 346 1478 102 1824 32.30 6.13 26.17 1.81
32 Avondale 85,204 286 2739 185 3025 35.50 3.36 32.15 2.17
33 Flagstaff 72,852 342 2465 158 2807 38.53 4.69 33.84 2.17
34 Phoenix 1,653,080 12110 57732 3902 69842 42.25 7.33 34.92 2.36
35 Kingman 29,669 118 1152 70 1270 42.81 3.98 38.83 2.36
36 Tempe 188,543 913 7802 488 8715 46.22 4.84 41.38 2.59
37 Glendale 249,799 1167 10186 561 11353 45.45 4.67 40.78 2.25
38 Tucson 537,392 3958 26623 1015 30581 56.91 7.37 49.54 1.89
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.
