The State of Safety in Nevada 2020

If you live in the Silver State, you might be more worried about your safety every day than people in other states. 

If you live in the Silver State, you might be more worried about your safety every day than people in other states. Our 2020 State of Safety study revealed that 54% of Nevadans feel high concern about their safety on a daily basis—that’s eight percentage points higher than the national average of 46%.

View the complete 2020 State of Safety report.

Nevada’s crime rates are higher than the national rates for both violent and property crime. In Nevada, your odds of falling victim to violent crime are 5.4 out of 1,000. Nationwide, those chances fall to just 3.7 in 1,000.

More people in Nevada (15%) report having experienced a violent crime in the past 12 months than the rest of the country, which reported 12% on average. The Silver State also has the highest number of people who’ve been personally affected by a mass shooting—16% versus 7% nationwide. 

It’s likely that the tragic incident at the Harvest Music Festival in 2017, the deadliest mass shooting in the country’s history, is the reason Nevada’s numbers are so high when it comes to personal experience with mass shootings.

There’s also more property crime in Nevada. The property crime rate is 24.4, compared to the national average of 22.0. There is some good news—both violent and property crime rates fell year over year, so things are trending in the right direction.

Violent Crime in Nevada: Fear vs. Reality

Being robbed on the street is the most worrisome violent crime in Nevada. Respondents also named robbery as the violent crime they think is most likely to happen to them.

• 53% said they’re highly concerned about being robbed on the street, versus 38% nationwide.
• 43% also named being robbed as the crime they feel has the greatest odds of actually happening, compared to just 27% across the US. 
• Robbery made up 24% of all the violent crime reported in Nevada.
• The most common violent crime in Nevada was aggravated assault, accounting for 61% of all incidents.
• 15% of Nevada respondents experienced violent crime in the past 12 months, exceeding the national average of 12%.
• 16% (the most of any state) said they, or someone they know, has been personally affected by a mass shooting at some point in their life, versus 7% nationwide.
• Between 2014 and 2019, there were 17 mass shootings in Nevada, resulting in 496 injuries and 73 deaths. 

Property Crime in Nevada: Fear vs. Reality

Having someone break in when the residents are out is the top property crime concern in Nevada, and it’s also the crime people feel is most likely to occur in real life.

• 67% expressed high concern about someone breaking into a home when no one’s home, compared to 62% nationwide. 
• 46% also said that they thought a break-in with no one home is the most likely crime that could happen.
• Burglary accounted for just 24% of the property crime that was reported in Nevada.
• Larceny-theft was the most prevalent property crime in the Silver State, making up 60% of all property crime in the state.
• 40% of Nevada respondents have a home security system, which is 16 percentage points higher than the national average of 24%.
• A security system is the most widely-used security measure that Nevadans use to protect their homes. Security cameras are second, with 30% of Nevada residents using one, compared to 25% across the US.
• 23% don’t use any measure to secure or protect their property, versus 29% nationwide. 
• 22% of participants had a personal experience with property crime in the past 12 months, compared to 26% nationally.

Nevada’s Safest Cities of 2020

We don’t have a ranking of safest cities for Nevada due to a limited number of cities reporting data to the FBI. We calculated crime rates for every city in the state that submitted a report to the FBI.

NOTE: If you don’t see your city on the list, it means that it didn’t submit a complete crime report to the FBI in 2018.

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.

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.

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”
Gun Violence Archive (GVA), “Mass Shootings Reports”

Mass Shooting Definition:
SafeWise uses the GVA definition of a mass shooting: “If four or more people are shot or killed in a single incident, not involving the shooter, that incident is categorized as a mass shooting based purely on that numerical threshold.”