Kansas – A Midwestern state, it was colonized by immigrants from other Northern/Southern US States in a chaotic and violent process that proved to be an ominous precursor of the Civil War to come. While its population of 2.9 million is 34th in the country, it is spread over an area that makes Kansas the 15th largest in the US. The result is a relatively low population density.
It is famed for its agriculture, with over 90% of the land being dedicated to the industry. The economy has seen challenges though over recent years, with a job creation rate that is amongst the lowest in the US and the state has lost its AAA rating. It is also known for its oil and gas production.
Household income averages at $56,400 and personal income at $30,100 are both lower than US national averages. Kansas has crime statistics which show that:
- It’s the 29th safest state for property crime (where 1st = lowest crime)
- The violent crime rate is significantly over the national average (ratio 1.09) with 3.79 crimes per 1,000 versus a national average of 3.47
- Property crime levels are by contrast below the national figure at 30.28 per 1,000 compared to the national average of 40.43 – giving a ratio of 0.75, making Kansas also the 29th safest state in violent crime analysis.
Certain areas of Kansas have low crime figures. The top 5 safest areas include:
- Leawood
- Liberal
- Lenexa
- Lansing
- Andover
Safest Cities in Kansas, 2019
| Rank | City | Violent Crimes | Property Crimes | Violent Crime Rate | Property Crime Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leawood | 31 | 439 | 0.885 | 12.532 |
| 2 | Liberal | 66 | 295 | 3.249 | 14.520 |
| 3 | Lenexa | 90 | 938 | 1.675 | 17.462 |
| 4 | Lansing | 28 | 135 | 2.345 | 11.306 |
| 5 | Andover | 18 | 295 | 1.365 | 22.377 |
| 6 | Gardner | 41 | 305 | 1.912 | 14.220 |
| 7 | Derby | 28 | 500 | 1.175 | 20.990 |
| 8 | Garden City | 168 | 732 | 6.286 | 27.387 |
| 9 | Junction City | 182 | 467 | 7.508 | 19.266 |
| 10 | Olathe | 255 | 1,958 | 1.860 | 14.285 |
| 11 | Shawnee | 117 | 1,091 | 1.781 | 16.610 |
| 12 | Overland Park | 399 | 3,231 | 2.083 | 16.866 |
| 13 | McPherson | 27 | 400 | 2.050 | 30.374 |
| 14 | El Dorado | 28 | 313 | 2.133 | 23.848 |
| 15 | Haysville | 43 | 371 | 3.801 | 32.791 |
| 16 | Hays | 65 | 517 | 3.079 | 24.491 |
| 17 | Emporia | 47 | 701 | 1.895 | 28.262 |
| 18 | Pittsburg | 90 | 968 | 4.415 | 47.488 |
| 19 | Dodge City | 125 | 840 | 4.554 | 30.604 |
| 20 | Winfield | 23 | 419 | 1.874 | 34.137 |
| 21 | Atchison | 37 | 368 | 3.481 | 34.626 |
| 22 | Newton | 121 | 683 | 6.337 | 35.769 |
| 23 | Salina | 201 | 1,758 | 4.254 | 37.206 |
| 24 | Leavenworth | 258 | 1,273 | 7.111 | 35.084 |
| 25 | Merriam | 42 | 676 | 3.724 | 59.940 |
| 26 | Hutchinson | 240 | 1,941 | 5.831 | 47.157 |
| 27 | Arkansas City | 63 | 582 | 5.246 | 48.464 |
| 28 | Topeka | 777 | 6,494 | 6.136 | 51.286 |
| 29 | Great Bend | 82 | 677 | 5.304 | 43.793 |
| 30 | Wichita | 3,998 | 21,649 | 10.223 | 55.356 |
METHODOLOGY
To identify the safest cities in Kansas, we reviewed the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics. A total of 7,639 cities were factored into this ranking with populations ranging from 7,639 to 4,007,147. However, we eliminated any cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI and removed cities with populations under 10,000.
Overall, data from 8,793 law enforcement agencies that represented more 193 million of the US population helped us draw interesting insights between the size of the police force and incidence of crime.
There are two broad classifications of crimes: violent crimes and non-violent crimes. According to the FBI, “Violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses that involve force or threat of force. Property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The object of the theft-type offenses is the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims. ”
We computed the total number of crimes reported by each city by adding violent crimes and property crimes. We then rated them using the population of the city and created a crime rate as the number of crimes per 1,000 population. Then we transformed the total crime rate variable so that the skewness was reduced and we normalized it so the final number became a score between 0 and 1.
Next, we computed a new variable called Police Adequacy (TotalCrimes / Number of police employees). We consider that the smaller the police adequacy statistic is, the safer the city is. We transformed and normalized this police adequacy variable also, resulting in a score between 0 and 1. Finally, we combined the two scores to create a safety score for each city.
