Idaho’s Safest Places
A headline came out today saying the our neighboring state of Oregon's biggest city Portland currently is seeing the highest homicide rate in 25 years. Portland already has a lot of problems and has seen its fair share of adversity and violence in the streets over the last 18 months. It made me even more grateful to be living in Idaho. Seeing that Oregon stat today made me wonder how Idaho ranks as far as crime, so I did some digging. My little family and I call Meridian home and I was happy to see it on at least one of the lists as a safe place. Idaho as a state in general is considered a much safer state. I have two studies here one from 2012 and then a look at how the gem state has changed with a more recent list.
Movoto dove in to crime and statistic analytics to determine which areas are the safest in Idaho with populations over 5,000 people. Movoto gathered the crime data for Murder, Rape, Robbery, Assault, Burglary, Theft, Vehicle theft. This study however was based off of FBI and crime rates from nearly a decade ago in 2012. Below you can see a more recent study to compare how things have changed. Weiser stood out as the winner.
1. City of Weiser
2. City of Rexburg
3. City of Meridian
4. City of Preston
5. City of Rupert
6. City of Emmett
7. City of Rathdrum
8. City of Moscow
9. City of Hailey
10. City of Mountain Home
Alternately Safewise did a similar study but with more recent stats. Some of the places were the same but others changed drastically. First we should all be proud that Idaho state’s violent and property crime rates fall far below the national average. We also have a high numbers of residents who protect themselves and their property. According to Safewise, 74% of Idahoans feel safe in their state, compared to 55% nationally. Other interesting stats from the study include gem state residents being least concerned about package theft. Third-least concerned over police violence, and sixth-least concerned about gun violence and overall safety. For the analysis from Safewise, They used FBI data from 2019, the most recent available, 2020s should be cleared and released soon. Weiser once again took the top spot, nearly a decade later. Meridian on the other hand was #3 on the other list and didn't even make the top 10 for this list. When you dive more into the website Meridian was ranked at #11 so it almost made the list. Boise was #16, Garden City was #29.
1. Weiser
2. Rexburg
3. Fruitland
4. Shelley
5. Rathdrum
6. Moscow
7. Preston
8. Rupert
9. Middleton
10. Hailey