Idaho’s 10 Safest Cities of 2022

The SafeWise Team is pleased to release the eighth annual Safest Cities report.

See if your city made the full list.

Idaho boasts some of the lowest violent and property crime rates in the nation, but it still saw an increase in violent crime for the 2022 reporting year. Most Idahoans feel safe in The Gem State and don’t worry about their daily safety as much as other Americans.

• Violent crime rates
• Property crime rates
• Interesting findings
• The Safest Cities
• Methodology
• How to make a safe home anywhere
• How other cities compare
• How other states compare

Idaho’s violent crime and property crime rates fall well below the national and regional averages. Still, The Gem State's violent crime rate of 2.4 represents a 7% increase year over year.

According to our latest State of Safety survey, Idaho residents are some of the least likely to worry about violent crime on a daily basis. This makes sense considering they’re also among the least likely to have experienced violent crimes or gun violence in the last year.

Idahoans are also the fifth-most likely to feel safe in their state (74%). Only 55% of Americans nationwide feel safe in their states. Idahoans are also the fifth-least likely to think that crime is increasing (ID 58% vs. US 66%).

Although Idaho residents feel most concerned about property crime, only 31% thought it would happen to them. This represents the fourth-lowest level of concern about property crime across the US.

We asked Idaho residents which crimes they worry may happen to them. See if Idahoans are concerned about the same crime issues as the rest of the country.

View the complete 2022 State of Safety report.

Although Idaho saw a 7% increase in violent crime year over year, its violent crime rate of 2.4 is the eighth-lowest in the nation and the second-lowest in the Mountain region. 

This aligns with our State of Safety survey results: 4% of Idahoans claimed to have experienced violent crime in the 12 months prior to the survey. That’s the third-lowest percentage in the nation and six percentage points lower than the national average. Still, it represents a year-over-year increase of two percentage points.

• Robbery accounts for 4% of violent crime in Idaho, which is the lowest percentage in the nation. The national average is 19%.
• Rape accounts for 19% of violent crime in Idaho, which is the sixth-highest percentage in the nation. The national average is 10%. 
• Idaho reported 41 murders in the last year, which is the eighth-lowest number in the nation. 
• 3 people were injured and another 3 were killed in 1 mass shooting event in Idaho this reporting year.
• 35% of Idaho residents use some form of personal protection (US 34%), with pepper spray leading the way at 17%.
• 30% of Idahoans say their personal safety has been affected by the pandemic, which is 14 percentage points lower than the national average.

Idaho’s property crime rate of 11.1 is the lowest in the Mountain region, sitting well below the regional average of 23.1. It’s also the third lowest in the nation. Idaho saw a 9% decrease in property crime year over year. 

That said, 16% of Idaho respondents to our State of Safety survey claimed they experienced property crime last year, up from 14% in 2021 and 10% in 2020.

• 21% of Idaho respondents claimed to have experienced package theft in the 12 months prior to our survey, which is 1 percentage point higher than the national average.
• Motor vehicle theft accounts for 9% of Idaho’s total property crime, which is 4 percentage points lower than the national average and the fourth-lowest in the nation. 
• 61% of Idaho residents use some form of property protection (US 60%) with firearms most prevalent at 44%.
• 18% say the security of their property has been affected by the pandemic, which is 11 percentage points lower than the national sentiment.

For the purposes of this report, 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.

• Rexburg, this year’s safest city in Idaho, also appears on our latest reports of the 100 Safest Cities in America and 50 Safest College Towns in America. 
• Buhl climbed 16 spots to land in fifth place this year, while Shelley took the largest nose-dive, falling 5 positions thanks to a 6.5-fold increase in violent crime. 
• 4 of Idaho’s 10 safest cities saw a decrease in violent crime year over year, and 5 saw a decrease in property crime.
• Only Hailey and Buhl saw decreases in both violent crime and property crime compared to the previous reporting year.
• Property crimes in Meridian—the most populous Idaho city on the top 10 list this year—account for 56% of all property crimes in Idaho’s 10 safest cities.
• Violent crimes in Meridian account for 72% of all violent crimes in Idaho’s 10 safest cities.
• 7 of Idaho’s 10 safest cities reported 0 robberies.
• Rigby reported just one violent crime—an aggravated assault—giving it a violent crime rate of 0.2.

VC=Violent crime
PC=Property crime

Learn how we identified the safest cities on our methodology page.

Whether your city made our list or not, we encourage everyone to be proactive about home security. One of the best ways to stop a burglary before it happens is to add a home security system.

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We calculated crime rates for every city in the state that met our population threshold, based on the state’s median population as calculated using FBI data. To request a report of the remaining cities in your state, sign up for our email newsletter (we make it easy in a quick form below!) or email info@safewise.com with the subject line: Safest Cities Full Report.

NOTE: If you don’t see your city on the list, it means that it was below the population threshold or didn’t submit a complete crime report to the FBI in 2020.

Click on the state image or dropdown menu below to check out the safest cities for each state.

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FBI: Crime Data Explorer, Accessed March 8, 2022.

US Census Bureau, "Data Explorer," Accessed January 24, 2022.

Best Places, “Find a Place Search Tool,” Accessed January 24, 2022.

SafeWise, “2021 State of Safety survey,” Accessed March 8, 2022.

Gun Violence Archive, “Past Summary Ledgers,” Accessed January 24, 2022.

Gun Violence Archive, “General Methodology,” Accessed March 8, 2022.

Melody Hicks, Ben Stickle, Joshua Harms, American Journal of Criminal Justice, “Assessing the Fear of Package Theft,” January 04, 2021. Accessed March 8, 2022.

For definitions and more on data sources, see our methodology page.