Compared to nationwide levels, Kentucky has admirably low levels of crime. The Bluegrass State’s violent crime rate of 2.12 per 1,000 is around 57% of the national rate, while the state’s rate of property crime is below average, as well. Much more impressive are the crime rates of Kentucky’s safest cities, which are a fraction of the already-low statewide rates.
Kentucky’s safest city is Independence, a home rule-class city of 28K in Kenton County. Kenton recorded just 23 violent crimes in 2018 for a remarkable violent crime rate of 0.82 offenses per 1,000. The city’s property crime rate is even more impressive, just over one-quarter of the national average.
Erlanger, Kentucky’s 2nd safest city, earned crime rates nearly as low as the top entry on the list. The Kenton County city logged a crime rate below 1 offense per 1,000, while its 8.09 per 1,000 property crime is just a notch higher than the preceding entry’s.
Though violent crime is twice as high in #3 Madisonville compared to Kentucky’s #1 and #2 safest cities, it’s still considerably below the national rate. What makes Madisonville so safe is its high law enforcement-to-residents ratio of 3.06 per 1,000.
Mount Washington, the 4th city in the ranking, earned a 0.82 per 1,000 violent crime rate matching #1 Independence’s. The city’s slightly higher property crime rate is the only thing keeping it from the top spot.
Last but not least is Lawrenceburg (#5), a small city in Anderson County that in 2018 earned the lowest violent crime rate in Kentucky, due to the fact that the city recorded a mere 4 violent crimes in the year. As with Mount Washington, Lawrenceburg is brought down only by its marginally higher rate of property crime.
Kentucky’s Safest Cities
KY 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 Independence 28052 23 154 38 177 6.31 0.82 5.49 1.35
2 Erlanger 22993 22 186 45 208 9.05 0.96 8.09 1.96
3 Madisonville 18959 37 209 58 246 12.98 1.95 11.02 3.06
4 Mount Washington 14704 12 131 20 143 9.73 0.82 8.91 1.36
5 Lawrenceburg 11378 4 142 20 146 12.83 0.35 12.48 1.76
6 Elizabethtown 30180 64 400 72 464 15.37 2.12 13.25 2.39
7 Danville 16801 34 283 44 317 18.87 2.02 16.84 2.62
8 Somerset 11453 30 247 45 277 24.19 2.62 21.57 3.93
9 Versailles 26552 27 391 37 418 15.74 1.02 14.73 1.39
10 Jeffersontown 27443 44 506 58 550 20.04 1.60 18.44 2.11
11 Bardstown 13244 26 261 30 287 21.67 1.96 19.71 2.27
12 Murray 19402 23 424 48 447 23.04 1.19 21.85 2.47
13 Covington 40448 164 1097 122 1261 31.18 4.05 27.12 3.02
14 Hopkinsville 30606 85 997 111 1082 35.35 2.78 32.58 3.63
15 Nicholasville 30922 60 824 65 884 28.59 1.94 26.65 2.10
16 Glasgow 14411 33 452 39 485 33.65 2.29 31.36 2.71
17 Georgetown 34351 62 992 60 1054 30.68 1.80 28.88 1.75
18 Lexington 325579 982 10329 701 11311 34.74 3.02 31.73 2.15
19 Newport 14972 46 569 42 615 41.08 3.07 38.00 2.81
20 Frankfort 27664 71 1052 72 1123 40.59 2.57 38.03 2.60
21 Ashland 20525 30 774 46 804 39.17 1.46 37.71 2.24
22 Paducah 24933 93 1134 82 1227 49.21 3.73 45.48 3.29
23 Shively 15876 55 578 34 633 39.87 3.46 36.41 2.14
24 Florence 32701 59 1240 68 1299 39.72 1.80 37.92 2.08
25 St. Matthews 18228 37 823 44 860 47.18 2.03 45.15 2.41
26 Owensboro 59686 160 2638 131 2798 46.88 2.68 44.20 2.19
27 Bowling Green 68268 208 3312 147 3520 51.56 3.05 48.51 2.15
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.
