Statewide, crime is surprisingly high in Colorado: the Centennial State’s violent and property crime rates are both significantly above national levels. However, the situation in Colorado’s 5 safest cities is quite different, as each of them recorded remarkably low rates of violent and property crime in 2018.
Frederick earns the title of Colorado’s safest community by a wide margin. The small Weld County town logged just 7 total crimes in 2018, resulting in fantastically low crime rates. Frederick’s property crime rate is only 1% of the national rate.
#2 Louisville may not have crime figures as impressive as #1 Frederick’s, but they are remarkable in their own right. The Boulder County home rule municipality–frequently listed among the best places to live in the U.S. by Money magazine–logged a violent crime rate just 17% of the statewide rate.
The 3rd safest community in Colorado is Firestone, a neighbor of #1 Frederick in Weld County where crime is nearly as scarce. In 2018, Firestone earned a violent crime rate of 1.25 per 1,000, along with a property crime rate of 8.46 per 1,000.
Earning the 4th spot is Erie, a town near others on the list with areas in both Boulder and Weld counties. With a violent crime rate just under 1 offense per 1,000 people, Erie’s violent crime is just one-quarter of statewide levels.
Closing out the list of Colorado’s 5 safest communities is Parker, a rapidly expanding town in Douglas County just within the Denver metropolitan area. Parker posted a violent crime rate identical to #4 Erie’s, along with a slightly higher property crime rate which is still comfortably below state and national levels.
Colorado’s Safest Cities
CO 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 Frederick 13390 4 3 22 7 0.52 0.30 0.22 1.64
2 Louisville 21545 16 93 42 109 5.06 0.74 4.32 1.95
3 Firestone 14419 18 122 32 140 9.71 1.25 8.46 2.22
4 Erie 25233 25 258 37 283 11.22 0.99 10.22 1.47
5 Parker 55573 55 781 106 836 15.04 0.99 14.05 1.91
6 Castle Rock 64526 36 969 102 1005 15.58 0.56 15.02 1.58
7 Steamboat Springs 13100 17 264 37 281 21.45 1.30 20.15 2.82
8 Johnstown 16490 9 222 19 231 14.01 0.55 13.46 1.15
9 Broomfield 70307 82 1707 207 1789 25.45 1.17 24.28 2.94
10 Fruita 13390 30 217 20 247 18.45 2.24 16.21 1.49
11 Centennial 111646 202 1958 163 2160 19.35 1.81 17.54 1.46
12 Golden 20768 44 537 63 581 27.98 2.12 25.86 3.03
13 Loveland 78192 201 1749 159 1950 24.94 2.57 22.37 2.03
14 Fort Morgan 11267 38 300 33 338 30.00 3.37 26.63 2.93
15 Fountain 30367 120 632 57 752 24.76 3.95 20.81 1.88
16 Fort Collins 168163 392 3701 302 4093 24.34 2.33 22.01 1.80
17 Evans 20744 108 423 37 531 25.60 5.21 20.39 1.78
18 Longmont 95534 415 2586 245 3001 31.41 4.34 27.07 2.56
19 Brighton 41613 114 1135 91 1249 30.01 2.74 27.28 2.19
20 Lafayette 28914 60 711 48 771 26.67 2.08 24.59 1.66
21 Greeley 107325 424 2739 208 3163 29.47 3.95 25.52 1.94
22 Durango 18717 81 661 62 742 39.64 4.33 35.32 3.31
23 Greenwood Village 15989 94 728 82 822 51.41 5.88 45.53 5.13
24 Littleton 48632 43 1560 98 1603 32.96 0.88 32.08 2.02
25 Arvada 120631 272 3544 220 3816 31.63 2.25 29.38 1.82
26 Boulder 108380 292 3666 262 3958 36.52 2.69 33.83 2.42
27 Thornton 139697 378 4647 313 5025 35.97 2.71 33.26 2.24
28 Aurora 372824 2716 11122 857 13838 37.12 7.28 29.83 2.30
29 Commerce City 57474 385 1826 132 2211 38.47 6.70 31.77 2.30
30 Northglenn 39383 145 1302 74 1447 36.74 3.68 33.06 1.88
31 Colorado Springs 471124 2617 15752 995 18369 38.99 5.55 33.43 2.11
32 Glenwood Springs 10022 35 473 34 508 50.69 3.49 47.20 3.39
33 Denver 720745 5262 26464 1824 31726 44.02 7.30 36.72 2.53
34 Grand Junction 62974 275 2733 182 3008 47.77 4.37 43.40 2.89
35 Federal Heights 12929 86 554 38 640 49.50 6.65 42.85 2.94
36 Montrose 19335 66 894 57 960 49.65 3.41 46.24 2.95
37 Sterling 13928 88 487 28 575 41.28 6.32 34.97 2.01
38 Canon City 16557 94 757 41 851 51.40 5.68 45.72 2.48
39 Englewood 35029 83 2139 108 2222 63.43 2.37 61.06 3.08
40 Lone Tree 13933 43 1010 60 1053 75.58 3.09 72.49 4.31
41 Pueblo 111756 1110 6231 279 7341 65.69 9.93 55.76 2.50
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.
