Safest Washington Cities 2019: See Where Kirkland Ranks
A new ranking by the National Council For Home Safety and Security shows how safe Washington cities are.
By Neal McNamara , Patch Staff | Jan 28, 2019 4:44 pm ET | Courtesy of Patch.com
KIRKLAND, WA - The National Council For Home Safety and Security has released a ranking of the safest cities in Washington using recent FBI crime data. Snoqualmie came in as the No. 1 safest city while University Place came in last on the list.
The list is a little different from other safest-cities lists. Usually, wealthy Eastside cities like Sammamish and Medina are ranked safest, but this list favors small, rural cities. Issaquah and Bellevue are ranked in the middle of the list, while Enumclaw came in No. 5.
The list was created by looking at violent and property crimes, and weighing that data based on population.
"We computed the total number of crimes reported by each city by adding violent crimes and property crimes. We then rated them using the population of the city and 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 we normalized it so the final number became a score between 0 and 1," the National Council For Home Safety and Security described.
Despite a few recent shootings, Kirkland's violent crime rate was slightly below the state average. Property crime in Kirkland was on par with cities like Bonney Lake, Edmonds, and Mill Creek.
(The list only includes cities of a certain size that send crime data to the FBI. Cities like Shoreline or Woodinville don't appear likely because they are policed by the King County Sheriff's Office.)
Here's the full ranking:
Snoqualmie
Oak Harbor
Sunnyside
West Richland
Enumclaw
Grandview
Washougal
Lynden
Bainbridge Island
Battle Ground
Cheney
Monroe
Lake Forest Park
Pullman
Lake Stevens
Camas
Mercer Island
Mukilteo
Ferndale
Anacortes
Mill Creek
Bothell
Edmonds
Ellensburg
Kirkland
Port Angeles
Poulsbo
Mountlake Terrace
Walla Walla
Bonney Lake
East Wenatchee
Aberdeen
Pasco
Redmond
Snohomish
Richland
Wenatchee
Issaquah
Bellevue
Sedro Woolley
Marysville
Kelso
Kennewick
Tumwater
Longview
Seattle
Vancouver
Fife
Everett
Mount Vernon
Olympia
Lacey
Bellingham
Lynnwood
Sumner
Yakima
Bremerton
Arlington
Des Moines
Lakewood
Edgewood
Moses Lake
Centralia
Port Orchard
Puyallup
Spokane Valley
Renton
Kent
Federal Way
Tacoma
Spokane
University Place
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