When starting your home search, in Washington as well as in other places, safety is often a chief priority. Whether you’re on your own or have a family to think about, finding a place where you feel comfortable and secure is a concern that needs to be addressed. Here at the Movoto Real Estate Blog, we understand how difficult that home search can be, and we’ve made a list that can help you on your way. We crunched some FBI crime data and discovered which places in the state of Washington were the safest, as well as the most dangerous. That later category is what we’ll be looking at today. Out of all the places in Washington, these were the most dangerous:
1. City of Tukwila
2. City of Yakima
3. City of Spokane
4. City of Burien
5. City of Tacoma
6. City of SeaTac
7. City of Centralia
8. City of Auburn
9. City of Longview
10. City of Bremerton (tie)
10. City of Port Orchard (tie)
If you’re wondering, Bremerton and Port Orchard tied for 10th, so that's why there are 11 places on this list. Curious where your hometown ranked? You can see a list of the 50 most dangerous places in the state at the bottom of this post, and check to see if your locale is one of them. If you’re just wondering how we created this ranking, you can read all about it in the very next section.
To create this crime-based Big Deal List, we analyzed data collected from the 2012 FBI Uniform Crime Report, for all reported cities of over 10,000 people in size (based on figures provided by the FBI in the 2012 UCR). This ranking is not a critique of police practices or effectiveness. It simply an analysis of where crimes occurred. We looked at crime in each of these Washington locales in the following criteria:
From there divided these crimes into four categories:
We left out any place that did not report data to the bureau that year, which left us with a total of 74 places to analyze. From there, we ranked each place in each category from one to 74, with scores closer to one being more dangerous. Next, to reflect the severity of certain crimes over others, we weighted murders, violent crimes, and property crimes so that they each comprised 30 percent of the overall score, whereas the total number of crimes comprised 10 percent. Lastly, we averaged each place’s weighted scores into one Big Deal Score. The place with the lowest number for that score ended up being the most dangerous spot in Washington. Let’s take a closer look at each of our 10 most dangerous places, to see why each of these ranked where they did.
“Enjoying the Kabota American Japanese Garden, weeping cultivar of Coast Douglas-fir Pseudotsuga menziesii,Tukwila, Washington, USA”byWonderlaneis licensed underCC BY 2.0
You might think that small cities offer a better community vibe and better safety. While the community part might be true for this Seattle suburb of only 19,677, the safety part certainly wasn’t. Let’s start by acknowledging that this place had the fifth most murders in the state for that year, at 10 per 100,000 people. Strangely enough, that was the best of the scores this place boasted. The violent crime, property crime, and total crime per 100,000 people all ranked No. 1 on our list. The most shocking of these is probably the property crime, which ranked where it did because of the staggering 12,670 thefts per 100,000 people in 2012. All of these less than desirable stats lead to Tukwila locals having a 1 in 6 chance of being the victim of a crime.
“Yakima K-9 unit in Selah Washington”byRichard Baueris licensed underCC BY 2.0
While “There’s More To Yakima” than crime, that does seem to be a fairly big problem for this 93,419 population city. The violent crime ranked sixth, with the majority of those crimes being assaults, and the property crime ranked eighth, with the majority of those being thefts. The real kicker here though was the ranking for the most murders per 100,000 people in all of Washington. There were 12 murders per 100,000 people reported in 2012, which was one of the biggest reason this place ranked where it did. Though the total crimes here ranked eighth, the chance of being the victim of a crime for locals was still 1 in 15.
“Downtown Spokane Washington”byClarkProductions2008is licensed underCC BY 2.0
The first of two big cities on our list, Spokane landed where it did for some pretty big reasons. For one thing, there were 5,939 thefts per 100,000 people in 2012, which helped catapult this place into second for property crime, and landed it No. 3 overall on our list. The total crime ranked second, the violent crime ranked fifth, and the chance of being the victim of a crime for locals was 1 in 11. It should also be noted that there were 1,804 burglaries per 100,000 people, which was the most in our top 10. To top it all off, there were six murders per 100,000 people in 2012, ranking the city No. 12 in that category.
Beautiful beaches, lovely trees...what’s not to love? Unfortunately for Burien, the crime rate here is hardly lovable. In fact, the fourth most violent crime and third most property crime are both probably stats that locals don’t have any positive feelings towards. This place also had the third most total crime in Washington, with most of them being either thefts or vehicle thefts. The second of those two categories was 1,714 crimes per 100,000 people, the most vehicle thefts in the entire state. All this also meant that locals had a 1 in 12 chance of being the victim of a crime. Of course, the most telling stat was the 12th most murders, at six per 100,000 people.
This is a big city at 202,656 people, so this ranking might be a little more expected. However, the stats here are still pretty shocking. Just looking at numbers, Tacoma had the second most property crime and the second most total crime in the state. The truly unfortunate stat here was the high number of violent crimes reported in 2012, the fifth most. Perhaps most notably, there were 505 assaults per 100,000 people, the most in our top 10. In fact, locals had a 1 in 68 chance of being the victim of an assault, and an even more depressing 1 in 14 chance of being the victim of a crime. Like two other cities above it in the rankings, Tacoma ranked 12th for murders, with six per 100,000 people.
They’re pretty new to this whole being an incorporated city thing, given that they just became one in the '90s, so that might be why the crime for this fairly small city is still so high. The crime was so high, in fact, that the 27,699 locals of SeaTac had a 1 in 15 chance of being the victim of a crime. What’s more startling was the types of crimes locals were most likely to be victims of. This place had the 10th most violent crime in the state, with 108 rapes, 249 robberies, and 199 assaults per 100,000 people. The property crime was also very high, with the majority of those being thefts or vehicle thefts. While the murder rate was slightly lower here, SeaTac still managed to rank 19th in that category.
This place might come as a bit of a shocker. A small locale of only 16,593 people, you may wonder how this spot could possibly be that dangerous. Well, Centralia had 12 murders per 100,000 people in 2012, ranking it in a tie for No. 1 in the murder category. The negative numbers didn’t stop there. The total crime ranked 20th, the property crime ranked 23rd, and the violent crime ranked 11th. There were 481 violent crimes reported that year, which alone says something about this place’s safety, and the previously mentioned murder rate was enough to put this place at No. 7 overall. Of course, the fact that locals had a 1 in 19 chance of being the victim of a crime in 2012 didn’t help much either.
Auburn, home to 72,218 people, ranked high on our dangerous list due to the 14th most property crime and the 15th most total crime. Most significant, though, was the ninth most murders on our list, at a total of eight per 100,000 people. We will say that this place had the lowest violent crime in our top 10, but it still ranked only 20th, and the numbers were still fairly high on the whole. Besides that, the chance of being the victim of a crime for locals was 1 in 17, so trying to be optimistic might be hard. On the bright side, the police department response time here was an average of under four minutes, so that’s something to be optimistic about we guess.
While it’s nice that Forbes names Longview one of the prettiest cities in the U.S., the crime here isn’t so nice. This fairly small city of only 37,032 locals had the 14th most violent crime in 2012, with the majority of those crimes being assaults. In fact, there were 200 assaults per 100,000 people that year. The property crime didn’t fare to well either, with 4331 thefts and the 10th most property crime on our list. The total crime ranked 10th as well, and the murders per 100,000 people ranked 21st. That last number was better than most others in our top 10, but was still pretty high. In the end, locals had a 1 in 16 chance of being the victim of a crime in 2012.
The first city in our two-way tie for 10th was just 39,433 people in size, and still was a fairly violent place to be. Bremerton ranked ninth for that category, with 96 rapes, 112 robberies, and 373 assaults per 100,000 people in 2012. Bremerton also had the 15th most property crime, with most of those crimes being thefts and burglaries. All that culminated in this city having the 13th most total crime in all of Washington, and a 1 in 17 chance of being the victim of a crime. Like Longview, Bremerton ranked 21st for murders per 100,000 people, with three in 2012.
Last on our safety list was the smallest spot to make our dangerous top 10, at merely 11,444 locals. Unfortunately for those locals, they had a 1 in 13 chance of being the victim of a crime, due to the fourth most property crime and the fourth most total crime on our list. This city had the seventh most violent crimes with 603 crimes of that type per 100,000 people reported in 2012. Fortunately, Port Orchard can say that there were no murders reported that year, and that their rapes per 100,000 people were fairly low. Now, this might all sound not too scary considering the others in our top 10. Just compare this place to the safest on our list, Sammamish, which had only 34 violent crimes per 100,000 people, including zero murders, and you might get a little more perspective.
We did all of these rankings by the numbers, as we usually do, and those numbers say that these are the 10 least safe in the state. We’re sure these spots have some great things going for them in different areas, and some are quite pretty, but if you’re worried about personal or property safety, these aren’t your safest bet. If you’re working on that next big move, and you’re seeking out a secure place to call home, don’t hesitate to get in touch. We sell houses for a living, after all, and we know a few safe spots in Washington that will really knock your socks. For Media Inquiries, Contact:
Randy Nelson
rnelson@movoto.com
