A real estate site, the Movoto Real Estate Blog analyzes safety in communities across the country. Their recent analysis yielded the following list of communities in Washington state (over 10,000 population) that are what they say, the safest in the state.
Their analysis determined that the city of Sammamish is the safest city in the Evergreen State with a population of more than 10,000. Mercer Island was fourth.
The analysts started with a list of 74 Washington towns with populations of more than 10,000 based on 2010 U.S. Census data. They gathered crime data on each place from the FBI’s 2012 Uniform Crime Report, omitting any communities that do not report crime data to the bureau.
They compiled data within three crime categories and looked at the ratio of crimes per 100,000 population, a standard analytical practice used to make comparisons between locations with different population sizes. Each place was given a ranking of 1 to 74 in murders, violent crimes, property crimes, and total crimes per 100,000 people with a number 1 ranking being the safest.
These four rankings were then weighted so that murders, violent crimes, and property crimes each accounted for 30 percent of the overall score, while total crimes made up 10 percent. The weighted rankings were averaged into one overall score, with the lower the score, the safer the place.
According to this analysis, Mercer Island was one of the least violent places in the state, with a total of just 48 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2012. This included no murders, nine rapes, nine robberies, and 30 aggravated assaults per 100,000. This may sound a bit frightening all laid out at once, but compare that to Tukwila, where there were 10 murders, 102 rapes, 498 robberies, and 407 aggravated assaults per 100,000 people, and Mercer Island’s safety is evident.
The full top 10 includes:
1. City of Sammamish, 2. City of Snoqualmie, 3. City of Bainbridge Island, 4. City of Mercer Island, 5. City of Pullman, 6. City of West Richland, 7. City of Kenmore, (tie) 7. City of Camas, (tie) 9. City of Mukilteo, 10. City of Maple Valley.
