Here Are The Safest Cities In Maryland, Home Security Firm Says

Stephen Paddock perched on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas late Sunday night, just across the street from a concert where Jason Aldean was performing, and — armed with nearly two dozen firearms — rained bullets down upon about 22,000 people. The mass shooting — the deadliest in modern U.S. history — left at least 59 people dead and more than 500 others hurt.

As Patch has previously reported, violent crime in the United States went up for the second consecutive year in 2016, rising 3.4 percent, the latest FBI crime data show. There were an estimated 17,250 murders last year — an 8.6 percent increase from 2015 — and an estimated 1.2 million violent crimes. The five-year trend shows an increase of 2.6 percent from 2012, and the 10-year trend shows a decrease in violent crimes of 12.3 percent from 2007.

According to the home security company SafeWise, which ranks the 100 safest cities in the country every year using the latest FBI data, not a single city in Nevada made its 2017 list. The only Maryland city on the list was Ocean Pines at No. 90. (Get Patch’s daily newsletter and real-time news alerts, or like us on Facebook. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

New Jersey had the most cities on the list with 25, followed by Massachusetts with 15 and Pennsylvania with 12. To see the safest cities in your state, click here to get to the SafeWise home page and scroll down until you reach "Discover the Safest Cities By State." Then select your state.

"If you don’t see your city represented, it’s possible that they reported incomplete data to the [FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program] or did not report data at all," SafeWise said on its website.

It also said: "We determine an appropriate threshold for each state and only report on cities with populations above this number," SafeWise said. That number is based on the state’s whole population and the number of cities to be included in the list.

Here are the top 10 safest cities in Maryland, according to SafeWise:

• Brentwood
• Manchester
• Ocean Pines
• Sykesville
• District Heights
• Glenarden
• Boonsboro
• Taneytown
• Hampstead
• Smithsburg

Each city’s safety score is calculated based on information on violent crimes, including aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder and robbery, as well as property crimes, such as arson, burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft.

Safewise says that Maryland has drawn a line in the sand when it comes to crime. Among the ten safest Maryland cities, 90 percent are repeat honorees, and Brentwood, the number-one safest city, tops the list for the second year in a row. Sykesville claims this year’s fourth spot on the list.

Overall, Maryland ranks twenty-third in the nation for property crime and comes in at thirty-nine for violent crime. While the state’s violent crime rate is slightly higher than the national average, every city on the list is well below both the national and the state averages for violent crime. According to the latest FBI crime data, 90 percent of these cities reported zero murders, with only one murder reported in all ten cities.

Here's the safety formula: (Violent Crimes/(Population/1,000)) + (Property Crimes/(Population/1,000))/2 = Safety Score.

"With these reports, we have put ourselves into our reader’s shoes in order to understand what makes us all feel safe or unsafe in a city. We feel that these rankings help get to the heart of the issue: what are the chances of crime happening to you or your loved ones?” SafeWise said.

By Daniel Hampton (Patch Staff)

Photo credit: Shutterstock