Although violent crime dropped nationally in 2018, Oklahoma witnessed a 1.9% increase of its violent crime rate, and it has higher levels of rape, murder, aggravated assault, and property crime–the four major violent crime categories–than the nation, at large. In the linked news story, Christopher Hill, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma, attributes the higher levels of crime to cultural and structural factors that plague the entire southeast region of the country.
Thankfully, Oklahoma’s crime problem is not endemic to all the state’s cities, and there a handful of communities with excellent safety records. Let’s take a look at Oklahoma’s 5 safest cities.
The safest city in Oklahoma is Guymon, a city of 11.5K in the state’s panhandle region. Guymon boasts strong local livestock and natural gas economies, as well as an impressive violent crime rate of 0.95 per 1,000, which is around 20% of state levels.
Mustang is Oklahoma’s 2nd safest city. The “bedroom” community of Oklahoma City recorded just 30 violent crimes in 2018, for an overall rate of 1.38 offenses per 1,000, while its property crime rate of 10.59 per 1,000 is on par with #1 Guymon’s.
#3 Elk City is another modestly-sized city located on Historic U.S. Route 66 near the western edge of the state that boasts the state’s lowest violent crime rate, a mere 0.61 offenses per 1,000. Elk City’s property crime rate, nearly double those of the first two entries in the ranking, keeps it out of the top spot.
Coming in at #4 is El Reno, a city established during the 1889 land rush and named after the nearby Fort Reno. El Reno’s violent crime rate of 2.23 per 1,000 is a notch higher than preceding entries, yet well below state and national levels.
Edmond, a large city of 93.5K that is part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, completes the list of Oklahoma’s 5 safest cities. The city’s violent crime rate of 1.36 per 1,000 is stellar for a community its size.
Oklahoma’s Safest Cities
OK City Population Violent
crimeProperty
crimeLaw enforcement
employeesTotal crimes Crime rate per 1,000 Violent crimes per 1,000 Property crimes per 1,000 Law enforcement per 1,000
1 Guymon 11546 11 121 22 132 11.43 0.95 10.48 1.91
2 Mustang 21809 30 231 37 261 11.97 1.38 10.59 1.70
3 Elk City 11544 7 231 39 238 20.62 0.61 20.01 3.38
4 El Reno 19272 43 341 59 384 19.93 2.23 17.69 3.06
5 Edmond 93557 127 1424 166 1551 16.58 1.36 15.22 1.77
6 Weatherford 11981 25 251 38 276 23.04 2.09 20.95 3.17
7 Jenks 23473 26 307 28 333 14.19 1.11 13.08 1.19
8 Bixby 27654 34 419 42 453 16.38 1.23 15.15 1.52
9 Glenpool 14273 66 215 29 281 19.69 4.62 15.06 2.03
10 Altus 18712 43 385 51 428 22.87 2.30 20.58 2.73
11 Stillwater 50445 168 959 116 1127 22.34 3.33 19.01 2.30
12 Choctaw 12724 21 210 18 231 18.15 1.65 16.50 1.41
13 Newcastle 10266 8 240 23 248 24.16 0.78 23.38 2.24
14 Broken Arrow 109663 156 2283 198 2439 22.24 1.42 20.82 1.81
15 Sapulpa 20948 42 529 55 571 27.26 2.00 25.25 2.63
16 Owasso 37220 65 856 76 921 24.74 1.75 23.00 2.04
17 Moore 62453 108 1314 91 1422 22.77 1.73 21.04 1.46
18 Duncan 22351 39 692 61 731 32.71 1.74 30.96 2.73
19 Guthrie 11519 39 339 31 378 32.82 3.39 29.43 2.69
20 Enid 50214 173 1428 119 1601 31.88 3.45 28.44 2.37
21 Claremore 18748 47 558 45 605 32.27 2.51 29.76 2.40
22 Norman 124577 336 3466 239 3802 30.52 2.70 27.82 1.92
23 Chickasha 16314 63 436 31 499 30.59 3.86 26.73 1.90
24 Bethany 19448 49 577 39 626 32.19 2.52 29.67 2.01
25 Midwest City 57710 180 1795 125 1975 34.22 3.12 31.10 2.17
26 Warr Acres 10372 43 386 31 429 41.36 4.15 37.22 2.99
27 Miami 13162 55 439 32 494 37.53 4.18 33.35 2.43
28 Sand Springs 20056 19 683 42 702 35.00 0.95 34.05 2.09
29 Bartlesville 36473 103 1213 79 1316 36.08 2.82 33.26 2.17
30 Tahlequah 16877 23 685 49 708 41.95 1.36 40.59 2.90
31 Lawton 93140 840 3338 278 4178 44.86 9.02 35.84 2.98
32 Ponca City 24066 169 951 66 1120 46.54 7.02 39.52 2.74
33 Ada 17339 84 640 36 724 41.76 4.84 36.91 2.08
34 Muskogee 37659 377 1536 93 1913 50.80 10.01 40.79 2.47
35 Ardmore 24817 159 1083 56 1242 50.05 6.41 43.64 2.26
36 Oklahoma City 652936 5663 26298 1382 31961 48.95 8.67 40.28 2.12
37 Okmulgee 11919 62 548 27 610 51.18 5.20 45.98 2.27
38 Durant 18043 53 911 43 964 53.43 2.94 50.49 2.38
39 Del City 21859 172 1062 48 1234 56.45 7.87 48.58 2.20
40 Shawnee 31422 424 1616 87 2040 64.92 13.49 51.43 2.77
41 McAlester 17999 115 1031 46 1146 63.67 6.39 57.28 2.56
42 Tulsa 403147 4294 21893 987 26187 64.96 10.65 54.31 2.45
Methodology
To identify the safest cities, we reviewed the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics. We eliminated any cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI and cities with populations under 10,000. This left 3,381 cities (out of a total of 9,251).
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 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 normalized.
Data from 2,831 law enforcement agencies was then collected to determine police adequacy (TotalCrimes / Number of police employees). We consider that the smaller the police adequacy statistic is, the safer the city is. This variable was also transformed and normalized.
Finally, the two variables were combined to create a safety score for each city.
