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Though Arkansas does not rank with the top states in terms of public safety and law enforcement, very safe communities are to be found within its borders. Here’s a glance at The Natural State’s safest cities.

Two Arkansas cities, Maumelle and Bentonville, share the honor of the state’s safest city, each earning a 0.32 score in our Safety Index. Of the two cities, Bentonville edges out Maumelle in crime rate, with a 1.4 per 1,000 violent crime rate and 17.54 per 1,000 property crime rate. Yet, Maumelle benefits from a higher law enforcement employee to resident ratio, which elevates its Safety Index score, allowing it to share the top spot on the list.

Third in rank is Cabot, a suburb of state capital Little Rock, posted a very good 2.18 violent crimes per 1K and an even more impressive 15.54 property crimes per 1K to earn its high Safety Index score.

Fourth on the list is the idyllic resort and retirement community of Bella Vista, which just incorporated into a city in 2006. WIth the lowest property crime rate of any of Arkansas top five safest cities, Bella Vista residents can rest easy knowing there is little chance of their homes or property being vandalized or broken into.

Arkansas #5 safest city is Batesville, a small community of 10,806 in the foothills of the Ozarks that just edges within our population parameters. The city’s violent and property crime rates are well below the state average.

Safest Cities in Arkansas, 2019

RankCitySafety Index
1Maumelle0.32
2Bentonville0.32
3Cabot0.25
4Bella Vista0.17
5Batesville0.15
6Mountain Home0.14
7Centerton0.04
8Siloam Springs-0.06
9Van Buren-0.18
10Bryant-0.24
11Rogers-0.26
12Benton-0.31
13Conway-0.33
14Arkadelphia-0.38
15Malvern-0.41
16Harrison-0.42
17Sherwood-0.49
18Jonesboro-0.55
19Russellville-0.57
20North Little Rock-0.7
21Hot Springs-0.73
22Magnolia-0.79
23Paragould-0.82
24Texarkana-0.86
25Fayetteville-0.88
26Jacksonville-1.1
27Blytheville-1.18
28El Dorado-1.2
29Marion-1.25
30Helena-West Helena-1.27
31Fort Smith-1.42
32Camden-1.82
33West Memphis-2.25
34Pine Bluff-2.52
35Little Rock-2.54

Methodology

We used the most recent FBI crime statistics to create state rankings. There were initially 7,430 cities in the data set. After filtering out the cities with populations of less than 10,000, 2,929 cities remained. We then calculated violent crime rates and property crime rates by dividing the crime numbers by the population to get rates per 1,000. We also calculated the ratio of law enforcement workers to per 1,000. These were weighted with -50% for the violent crime rate, -25% for the property crime rate, and +25% for the law enforcement rate. The resulting metric gave us a the safety index score. The higher this number more safe the city is.

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