Indiana is right in the middle of the pack among U.S. states in terms of crime: the state’s violent and property crime rates are about as close as you can get to the national averages in both categories. The situation in the Hoosier State’s safest cities is very different, however, with each of the top 5 logging crime rates that compare favorably to the safest in the country.
Crime is scarce in St. John, Indiana’s safest community. The town of 17.6K logged just 3 violent crimes in 2018, good for a rate of 0.17 offenses per 1,000, while its property crime rate is less-than-a-third of the national rate.
Indiana’s 2nd safest city is Dyer, a town which neighbors #1 St. John in Lake Country, and nearly matches its low levels of crime. The southeastern suburb of Chicago recorded only 10 crimes in 2018, along with a remarkable 8.38 per 1,000 rate of property crime.
Chesterton is Indiana’s 3rd safest city. One of a trio of cities known as the Duneland area for being home to Indiana Dunes National Park, Chesterton logged a violent crime rate below 1 offense per 1,000 in 2018, and its property crime rate is slightly lower than #2 Dyers.
#4 Carmel’s low crime rates are all the more impressive in light of its size: the city’s population tops 94,000. Recording a violent crime rate of 0.46 per 1,000 in 2018 (the state’s 3rd lowest), Carmel’s crime situation resembles that of a much smaller community.
Rounding out the list of Indiana’s 5 safest cities is West Lafayette, a city in Tippecanoe County around 65 miles northwest of state capital Indianapolis. Like other cities in the ranking, West Lafayette earned a violent crime rate under 1 per 1K and a property crime rate under 10 per 1k in 2018.
Indiana’s Safest Cities
IN 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 St. John 17615 3 111 23 114 6.47 0.17 6.30 1.31
2 Dyer 15880 10 133 35 143 9.01 0.63 8.38 2.20
3 Chesterton 13561 11 111 26 122 9.00 0.81 8.19 1.92
4 Carmel 94128 43 716 140 759 8.06 0.46 7.61 1.49
5 West Lafayette 46906 31 401 70 432 9.21 0.66 8.55 1.49
6 Fishers 94035 46 815 125 861 9.16 0.49 8.67 1.33
7 Brownsburg 26525 33 264 49 297 11.20 1.24 9.95 1.85
8 Noblesville 63315 59 589 92 648 10.23 0.93 9.30 1.45
9 Crown Point 29884 6 335 51 341 11.41 0.20 11.21 1.71
10 Valparaiso 33610 37 402 63 439 13.06 1.10 11.96 1.87
11 Auburn 13220 7 169 25 176 13.31 0.53 12.78 1.89
12 Bluffton 10046 20 167 32 187 18.61 1.99 16.62 3.19
13 Cedar Lake 12602 7 193 25 200 15.87 0.56 15.32 1.98
14 Munster 22596 21 375 47 396 17.53 0.93 16.60 2.08
15 Bedford 13282 16 283 39 299 22.51 1.20 21.31 2.94
16 Portage 36646 68 740 74 808 22.05 1.86 20.19 2.02
17 Griffith 16050 8 381 39 389 24.24 0.50 23.74 2.43
18 Crawfordsville 16207 71 342 41 413 25.48 4.38 21.10 2.53
19 Highland 22428 11 567 47 578 25.77 0.49 25.28 2.10
20 Jeffersonville 47709 65 1239 90 1304 27.33 1.36 25.97 1.89
21 Plainfield 33668 93 794 58 887 26.35 2.76 23.58 1.72
22 Frankfort 15744 9 469 35 478 30.36 0.57 29.79 2.22
23 Lawrence 49093 210 1083 82 1293 26.34 4.28 22.06 1.67
24 Lake Station 11880 31 321 23 352 29.63 2.61 27.02 1.94
25 Fort Wayne 267634 1024 7007 531 8031 30.01 3.83 26.18 1.98
26 Franklin 25288 129 708 57 837 33.10 5.10 28.00 2.25
27 Hammond 76050 365 2652 240 3017 39.67 4.80 34.87 3.16
28 Peru 10973 51 370 32 421 38.37 4.65 33.72 2.92
29 Speedway 12187 35 522 50 557 45.70 2.87 42.83 4.10
30 Shelbyville 19075 215 563 61 778 40.79 11.27 29.52 3.20
31 Bloomington 85730 463 2275 157 2738 31.94 5.40 26.54 1.83
32 Kokomo 57804 364 1426 97 1790 30.97 6.30 24.67 1.68
33 Goshen 33386 47 1128 71 1175 35.19 1.41 33.79 2.13
34 Marion 28116 128 1038 78 1166 41.47 4.55 36.92 2.77
35 Lafayette 72904 338 2623 188 2961 40.62 4.64 35.98 2.58
36 Hobart 28101 71 1112 77 1183 42.10 2.53 39.57 2.74
37 Gary 75426 374 2723 192 3097 41.06 4.96 36.10 2.55
38 Columbus 47595 76 1706 94 1782 37.44 1.60 35.84 1.97
39 Elkhart 52659 624 1869 161 2493 47.34 11.85 35.49 3.06
40 Muncie 68406 219 2281 114 2500 36.55 3.20 33.35 1.67
41 Indianapolis 877584 11170 36237 3153 47407 54.02 12.73 41.29 3.59
42 Greenwood 58312 83 1777 69 1860 31.90 1.42 30.47 1.18
43 Seymour 19681 41 995 60 1036 52.64 2.08 50.56 3.05
44 Anderson 54925 227 2340 124 2567 46.74 4.13 42.60 2.26
45 South Bend 102397 1064 4406 283 5470 53.42 10.39 43.03 2.76
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.
