Three local cities among list of top 10 safest cities

Published 10:29 am Thursday, May 2, 2019

Three local cities made the top 10 of SafeHome.org list of Alabama’s Safest Cities.

Pelham earned the highest ranking of any local city at No. 3, followed closely by Alabaster at No. 4. Hoover also made the list, coming in at No. 9.

The website ranked the top 25 safest cities in the state using 2018 FBI data from 13,366 law enforcement agencies of cities with a population of at least 22,000, according to spokeswoman Haley Helms.

The rankings were based on relevant categories of FBI data including population, property crimes, violent crime trend, violent crimes, citizen to officer ratio and property crime trend.

Vestavia Hills topped the list with a “Safety Score” of 87.25. Daphne was No. 2 with a score of 82.16.

Pelham, with a population of 22,997, had a citizen-to-officer ratio of 279, 33 violent crimes (trend of an increase of 61.4 percent) and 474 property crimes (increase of 12.3 percent).

Pelham’s Safety Score was 82.1.

Alabaster, with a population of 31,821, had a citizen-to-officer ratio of 397, 132 violent crimes (increase of 125.8 percent) and 534 property crimes (decrease of 13.4 percent).

Alabaster’s Safety Score was 81.91.

Hoover, with a population of 85,163, had a citizen-to-officer ratio of 388, 129 violent crimes (increase of 31.1 percent) and 2,457 property crimes (increase of 8.5 percent).

Hoover’s Safety Score was 76.75.

The rest of the top 10 included No. 5 Madison, No. 6 Athens, No. 7 Auburn, No. 8 Enterprise and No. 10 Prattville.

The rest of the top 25 included Dothan, Northport, Florence, Decatur, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa, Mobile, Huntsville, Phenix City, Opelika, Prichard, Birmingham, Gadsden, Anniston and Bessemer.

See the full list here.