Washington’s 20 Safest Cities of 2020

The SafeWise Team is pleased to release the sixth annual Safest Cities report. Here are the 20 Safest Cities in Washington for 2020. See if your city made the list.

Washington residents are more worried about safety on a daily basis than people in other states. But if you live in one of Washington’s safest cities, you have far less crime to worry about than most of the country. 

See the complete list of Washington’s 20 safest cities of 2020. 

General concern about safety slightly increased across the Evergreen State this year, according to our 2020 State of Safety survey. 52% of survey respondents said they’re highly concerned about safety every day, but only 46% across the country said the same.

View the complete 2020 State of Safety report.

Experience with both violent and property crime increased year over year in Washington, but experiences with property crime made a much bigger leap—jumping from 17% in 2019 to 30% this year. 

The jump in property crime experience isn’t surprising considering that Washington’s state property crime rate is 7.5 points higher than the national rate of 22.0, but the state is trending downward, with a drop of more than 2 incidents per 1,000 year over year.

The state’s violent crime rate is 3.1 incidents per 1,000. That’s slightly higher than last year’s rate of 3.0, but still below the national violent crime rate of 3.7.

Violent Crime in Washington: Fear vs. Reality

Physical assault by a stranger is the top violent crime concern in the Evergreen State, but people think they’re more likely to be robbed on the street.   

• 45% named physical assault by a stranger as their most concerning violent crime. That’s five percentage points higher than the national average of 40%. 
• Assault comprised 61% of all violent crime reported in Washington and made up 52% of the violent crime incidents reported by the safest cities. 
• 27% in Washington—and across the country—think the violent crime that people are most likely to fall victim to is robbery. 
• There were 73 robberies reported by the safest cities, totalling 15% of all violent crime in those cities; statewide robbery accounts for 24%.

Property Crime in Washington: Fear vs. Reality

A break-in while residents aren’t home is the property crime that caused the most concern in Washington. Yet having property stolen is the crime survey respondents deemed most likely to actually happen. 

• 65% reported the highest concern about someone breaking into their home when no one is home. The national average is 62%.
• Burglary accounted for 15% of all property crime reported by the safest cities and 18% of all property crime in Washington.
• 32% indicated the property crime they think is most likely is having property stolen, compared to 36% across the country. 
• Larceny-theft is the most common property crime in Washington, totalling 69% of the state’s property crimes and 77% of the property crimes reported by the safest cities.
• 23% of WA respondents have a home security system. The national average is 24%. 
• 35% said they have a dog or other guard animal, which is higher than the national average of 33%. 
• 32% don’t use any extra protection to secure their property, despite higher-than-average concern about break-ins. Nationally, 29% use no form of security or protection on their property.

A Closer Look at Washington’s Safest Cities of 2020

For the purposes of this report, the terms “safest” and “dangerous” refer explicitly to crime rates as calculated from FBI crime data—no other characterization of any community is implied or intended.

• Snoqualmie remains the safest city in Washington for the third straight year, with a violent crime rate of 0.2 and just three total violent crime incidents reported in 2018. The city’s property crime rate is 12.1.
• West Richland joined the top three cities this year.
• Eleven cities (55%) improved year over year, with Mill Creek taking the biggest leap—26 spots to claim number eight, followed by Washougal, which jumped 25, and Grandview, that moved up 24.
• Six cities (30%) dropped in rank this year. 
• All cities came in under both state (3.1) and national (3.7) violent crime rates.
• Eight cities (40%) limited violent crime to less than one incident per 1,000 and all cities kept it below two incidents per 1,000.
• Eighteen cities (90%) reported fewer than 50 total violent crimes.
• 85% of the cities had property crime rates below the national rate (22.0) and all cities beat the state’s higher rate of 29.5.
• Oak Harbor has the lowest property crime rate of 6.9, followed by West Richland with 8.3 and Camas with 9.2.
• The city that reported the fewest number of property crimes was West Richland with 125, followed by Oak Harbor with 162, and Snoqualmie with 169. Every other city reported at least 205 or more.

The 20 Safest Cities in Washington

VC = Violent Crime
PC = Property Crime

How We Determined the Safest Cities

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

How to Make a Safe Home Anywhere

Whether your city made our list or not, we recommend adding extra security to your home with monitored security services provided by the nation’s leading home security providers.

To learn more about your home security options, check out SafeWise’s picks for Best Home Security Systems.

Didn’t Find Your City in the Top 20?

We calculated crime rates for every city in the state that met our population threshold, which is based on the median population of the state. See how the remaining cities ranked in the list below.

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 2018.

Sources

FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, “2018 Crime in the United States”
SafeWise, “2020 State of Safety”
US Census Bureau, “American Fact Finder”
BestPlaces, “Find a Place Search Tool”