Ranking crowns small Whidbey Island locale Washington’s safest city
Feb 19, 2020, 11:14 AM
A recent study ranked Washington state’s safest cities, naming Whidbey Island’s Oak Harbor to the top spot.
Study: Seattle ranks 150th in country’s safest cities
The report comes courtesy of Alarms.org, factoring in the rate of violent and non-violent crimes relative to each city’s population. That had it assigning a number value based on crimes per every 1,000 people.
In Oak Harbor, the small town of just over 23,000 boasts just 7.97 crimes per 1,000 people. That number dips to just 1.03 for violent crimes, and 6.94 for property crimes.
Rounding out the top 5 were West Richland, Camas, Snoqualmie, and Bainbridge Island respectively. Bainbridge Island is also the second largest city in Kitsap County.
Seattle ranked 60th with 58.29 crimes for every 1,000 people, just behind Auburn and directly ahead of Sumner. A late-2019 report ranked Seattle the 150th safest city in the nation out of 180 metro areas, sitting between Oakland and Columbus.
Total reported crimes in Seattle down in 2019, gun violence still concern
Similarly large cities in Washington also found themselves ranked among the least safe places to live, driven largely by property crimes.
“Washington’s crime situation is a bit unusual: the state boasts a violent crime rate considerably below the national average, yet has a significant property crime issue, mainly in Seattle and its other large cities,” the report reads.
The only city with a population above 40,000 in the top 20 was Bothell, sneaking in at 19th. Bellevue is the highest-ranked city with over 100,000 people at 40th.
Holding up the bottom five spots on the list were Puyallup, Tacoma, Shelton, Spokane, and Tukwila in order.
