See California's Safest, Most Dangerous Cities In 2022: Safewise

CALIFORNIA — With crime rates increasing in California and the nation, California residents may be interested to learn just how safe their community is.

Safewise, an online safety consulting website, released its 8th annual “50 Safest Cities in California” report. Using the most recent FBI crime report statistics, Safewise analyzed the number of reported violent crimes and reported property crimes, and calculated the rate of crimes per 1,000 people in each city. Both violent and property crime numbers were weighted equally, meaning that a city with no violent crime could end up lower on the list than a city with higher violent crime if its property crime rate was sufficiently high.

The rankings also factors in data points like median income, high school graduation rates, redlining practices, household access to high-speed internet, city budget allocations, and unemployment rates.

See here to learn more about the methodology of the report, and here for the full rankings. See here to check out other states.

Some interesting factoids from the report include:

• 48% of the safest cities in California reported zero incidents of murder.
• The top three safest cities in California have held their title and spot for three years in a row.
• San Gabriel saw the most dramatic improvement from last year, climbing 32 spots.
• Contrary to nationwide trends, nine of the state’s safest cities have populations of over 100,000, and 3 have over 200,000.
• The average population in the top 50 safest cities is 77,162.
• 5 of the 10 most dangerous cities, which includes San Francisco, are in the Bay Area
• 9 of the 10 safest communities are in Southern California

Here are 2022's safest cities, with respective violent and property crime rates per 1000 people:

1. Danville (0.5, 5.3)
2. Rancho Santa Margarita (0.4, 5.9)
3. Moorpark (0.5, 0.7)
4. Aliso Viejo (0.5, 7.6)
5. Yorba Linda (0.5, 0.6)
6. Laguna Niguel (0.6, 8.7)
7. Poway (1.1, 7.4)
8. Mission Viejo (0.8, 9.0)
9. Rancho Palos Verdes (1.0, 8.1)
10. Thousand Oaks (0.6, 10.4)

Below are the least safe:

1. Bakersfield (5.2, 45.2)
2. Berkeley (4.4, 45.2)
3. San Francisco (5.4, 43.9)
4. Santa Monica (6.0, 42.6)
5. Compton (11.8, 23.5)
6. Richmond (9.6, 33.0)
7. Vallejo (9.9, 33.3)
8. Stockton (12.8, 29.8)
9. San Bernardino (14.0, 28.0)
10. Oakland (12.9, 51.65)