Idaho is a great state to live in if you are a lover of the outdoors: magnificent mountain ranges and picturesque lakes make it a playground for hiking and skiing enthusiasts. In order to help you decide which Idaho city is right for you and your family, we’ve rated them all in terms of safety, based on violent crime rate, property crime rate, and the ratio of law enforcement employees to residents. Let’s see which Gem State cities fared the best.
Rexberg is Idaho’s safest city, earning a 0.48 score in our Safety Index based on a very low 0.38 per 1K violent crime rate as well as a property crime rate several times below the nationwide average. The family-first Madison County community has expanded considerably in recent decades thanks to an influx of LDS Church members.
At second place, Mountain Home is a small, yet growing city of around 14,000 located near an Air Force base. The city’s low crime and high concentration of military personnel should be enough to keep residents feeling safe.
Third in our ranking is Post Falls, a city of around 35,000 with a postcard-worthy location along the Spokane River. In addition to its natural beauty, Post Falls also boasts a violent crime rate below 2 incidents per 1,000 residents.
Located on the border of Washington, #4 Lewiston holds the distinction of being the first capital of the Idaho Territory. Nowadays, the city is a safe, family-friendly hub for those working in agriculture and manufacturing.
Meridian, Idaho’s third largest and fastest growing city earns the #5 spot on the list, recording a low violent crime rate of 1.5 per 1,000.
Safest Cities in Idaho, 2019
| Rank | City | Safety Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rexburg | 0.48 |
| 2 | Mountain Home | 0.29 |
| 3 | Post Falls | 0.2 |
| 4 | Lewiston | 0.13 |
| 5 | Meridian | 0.12 |
| 6 | Moscow | 0.08 |
| 7 | Jerome | 0.07 |
| 8 | Idaho Falls | -0.01 |
| 9 | Blackfoot | -0.04 |
| 10 | Caldwell | -0.06 |
| 11 | Boise | -0.11 |
| 12 | Nampa | -0.12 |
| 13 | Coeur d'Alene | -0.13 |
| 14 | Pocatello | -0.25 |
| 15 | Twin Falls | -0.31 |
| 16 | Garden City | -0.31 |
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.
Did your district make the list? Share the good news!
