Georgia is in the middle-of-the-pack in terms of crime compared to the rest of the U.S.: the state’s violent crime rate of 3.26 per 1,000 is around 12% lower than the national rate, though its property crime rate of 25.74 per 1,000 is 17% above national levels. While Georgia’s statewide crime rates are a mixed bag, the Peach State’s 5 safest cities earned remarkably low crime rates in 2018. Let’s take a closer look.
Braselton is the safest community in Georgia by a wide margin. The small town, which straddles 4 different counties, recorded just 1 violent crime in 2018, and its property crime rate was nearly 5 times lower than the Georgia statewide rate.
#2 Holly Springs logged 2018 crime rates nearly as remarkable as those of #1 Braselton’s, including a 0.24 per 1,000 violent crime rate and a property crime rate below 10 per 1,000. It’s not hard to see why the small city has earned numerous awards and honors in the past decade.
Georgia’s 3rd safest city, Johns Creek, is a great degree larger than the preceding entries on the list, with a population over 85K. However, that didn’t stop the city from recording terrific crime rates more characteristic of a small town, including a violent crime rate just over 10% of the national rate.
Ranking 4th is Milton, a wealthy city of nearly 40K in Fulton County with low levels of crime on par with prior entries on the list. Few cities in the country accomplish the feat of posting a violent crime rate less than 10% of the national rate, along with a property crime rate below 8 per 1,000, yet Milton did both in 2018.
Another small town fills out the list of Georgia’s safest communities. Jefferson, a historic town founded in 1800, earns the #5 spot thanks to a violent crime rate of about 1 offense per 1,000 and a property crime rate of about half of Georgia statewide levels.
Georgia’s Safest Cities
GA 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 Braselton 11537 1 65 20 66 5.72 0.09 5.63 1.73
2 Holly Springs 12369 3 123 33 126 10.19 0.24 9.94 2.67
3 Johns Creek 85446 34 532 84 566 6.62 0.40 6.23 0.98
4 Milton 39848 11 288 43 299 7.50 0.28 7.23 1.08
5 Jefferson 11394 12 151 26 163 14.31 1.05 13.25 2.28
6 Kennesaw 34907 57 428 73 485 13.89 1.63 12.26 2.09
7 Grovetown 14543 14 186 27 200 13.75 0.96 12.79 1.86
8 Peachtree City 35374 18 466 63 484 13.68 0.51 13.17 1.78
9 Duluth 29882 20 537 76 557 18.64 0.67 17.97 2.54
10 Roswell 95677 126 1500 175 1626 16.99 1.32 15.68 1.83
11 Alpharetta 67051 42 1204 139 1246 18.58 0.63 17.96 2.07
12 Acworth 23028 24 503 63 527 22.89 1.04 21.84 2.74
13 Powder Springs 15214 33 285 32 318 20.90 2.17 18.73 2.10
14 Fayetteville 18042 29 467 55 496 27.49 1.61 25.88 3.05
15 Dallas 13496 37 303 34 340 25.19 2.74 22.45 2.52
16 Decatur 24491 41 576 58 617 25.19 1.67 23.52 2.37
17 Sandy Springs 108654 128 2015 157 2143 19.72 1.18 18.55 1.44
18 Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan 242265 982 5960 687 6942 28.65 4.05 24.60 2.84
19 Smyrna 57498 117 1459 136 1576 27.41 2.03 25.37 2.37
20 Suwanee 20227 29 523 47 552 27.29 1.43 25.86 2.32
21 Canton 28685 34 668 53 702 24.47 1.19 23.29 1.85
22 Statesboro 31819 110 845 84 955 30.01 3.46 26.56 2.64
23 Dalton 33831 93 987 97 1080 31.92 2.75 29.17 2.87
24 McDonough 25151 37 662 53 699 27.79 1.47 26.32 2.11
25 Loganville 12308 16 320 25 336 27.30 1.30 26.00 2.03
26 Newnan 39830 182 1052 96 1234 30.98 4.57 26.41 2.41
27 Pooler 24656 24 758 59 782 31.72 0.97 30.74 2.39
28 Marietta 61675 214 1948 180 2162 35.05 3.47 31.58 2.92
29 Lilburn 12847 47 407 37 454 35.34 3.66 31.68 2.88
30 Norcross 17089 81 569 57 650 38.04 4.74 33.30 3.34
31 Gainesville 41368 158 1280 109 1438 34.76 3.82 30.94 2.63
32 Rincon 10039 13 314 21 327 32.57 1.29 31.28 2.09
33 Villa Rica 15536 57 583 49 640 41.19 3.67 37.53 3.15
34 Bainbridge 12033 91 456 46 547 45.46 7.56 37.90 3.82
35 Covington 14178 51 666 66 717 50.57 3.60 46.97 4.66
36 Milledgeville 18620 66 764 62 830 44.58 3.54 41.03 3.33
37 Hinesville 33163 147 1201 91 1348 40.65 4.43 36.22 2.74
38 Brookhaven 54138 187 1456 77 1643 30.35 3.45 26.89 1.42
39 Snellville 19947 64 795 56 859 43.06 3.21 39.86 2.81
40 Thomasville 18507 33 860 64 893 48.25 1.78 46.47 3.46
41 LaGrange 30611 130 1408 106 1538 50.24 4.25 46.00 3.46
42 Forest Park 20024 134 962 82 1096 54.73 6.69 48.04 4.10
43 Atlanta 496106 3814 23091 1987 26905 54.23 7.69 46.54 4.01
44 Dublin 15756 127 774 70 901 57.18 8.06 49.12 4.44
45 Carrollton 27189 160 1122 81 1282 47.15 5.88 41.27 2.98
46 Fairburn 15904 52 660 42 712 44.77 3.27 41.50 2.64
47 Monroe 13573 89 629 50 718 52.90 6.56 46.34 3.68
48 Doraville 10625 53 637 59 690 64.94 4.99 59.95 5.55
49 College Park 15034 156 1035 116 1191 79.22 10.38 68.84 7.72
50 Clarkston 12957 63 415 21 478 36.89 4.86 32.03 1.62
51 Vidalia 10488 65 493 35 558 53.20 6.20 47.01 3.34
52 Waycross 13771 71 770 59 841 61.07 5.16 55.91 4.28
53 Griffin 22707 261 1080 80 1341 59.06 11.49 47.56 3.52
54 Brunswick 16431 175 862 62 1037 63.11 10.65 52.46 3.77
55 Douglasville 34076 193 1841 111 2034 59.69 5.66 54.03 3.26
56 Cordele 10669 64 561 31 625 58.58 6.00 52.58 2.91
57 Dunwoody 50095 79 2032 73 2111 42.14 1.58 40.56 1.46
58 Moultrie 14136 73 707 32 780 55.18 5.16 50.01 2.26
59 Albany 72594 809 3704 183 4513 62.17 11.14 51.02 2.52
60 Americus 15184 130 921 45 1051 69.22 8.56 60.66 2.96
61 Warner Robins 75668 444 4200 148 4644 61.37 5.87 55.51 1.96
62 East Point 35486 441 4260 114 4701 132.47 12.43 120.05 3.21
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.
