SANTA MONICA – Santa Monica recently ranked among the least safe cities in California, according to a report by Safewise.
Safewise analyzed FBI crime statistics to make its list, along with reports from other states using data from the numbers of violent and property crimes reported by cities and towns to the FBI.
That was then computed with the rates of crime per 1000 residents in each municipal area.
According to the report, Santa Monica’s rate is 6 violent crimes and 42.6 property crimes per 1,000 residents.
That ranks the city #224 out of #230, just below San Francisco. In 2021, Santa Monica ranked 222nd.
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The only other California cities that have a higher rate are Compton (#225), Richmond (#225), Stockton (#227), San Bernardino (#229), and Oakland (#230).
Other SoCal cities placed on the lower end of the list due to property crimes. These include Beverly Hills (#204), Culver City (#220), West Hollywood (#212), and Los Angeles (#200).
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The safest city in the state is Danville, an unincorporated area in Contra Costa County in Northern California. According to the report, Danville, which has a population of 47,000, has an average of 0.5 violent crimes and 5.3 property crimes per 1,000 people.
“For the purposes of city ranking reports, the terms ‘dangerous’ and ‘safest’ refer explicitly to crime rates as calculated from FBI crime data — no other characterization of any community is implied or intended.” and that “The ‘safest’ cities rankings are intended to highlight cities with low crime rates and ignite conversation and action around how to make all cities and communities safer,” according to Safewise.
The report considers violent crimes to be aggravated assault, murder, rape and robbery and property crimes as burglaries, larceny-theft and vehicle theft.
“Both violent and property crime numbers were weighted equally. That means that a city with no violent crimes reported could end up lower on the list due to a higher property crime rate, and vice versa,” Safewise said.
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The average population of the top 50 of this list’s safest cities in California is 77,162, however, nine of the safest cities have populations in excess of 100,000 residents and three have populations of over 200,000. One of those cities is Santa Clarita which ranks #13 on the list.
Almost half of those 50 safest cities had no reports of murder and the report states that “there were fewer reports of each major property crime this reporting year — except motor vehicle thefts, echoing rising national car thefts during the pandemic.”
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