While some names on the top 10 list are not surprising, others are quite surprising. The top 10 list starting with the worst includes: South Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, Ogden, Washington, Tooele, Brigham City, Cedar City, Sandy, City of West Jordan, and the City of Payson.
Usually when one thinks about crime in Utah, it’s places like Salt Lake and Ogden that come to mind, and while they did make the list, their listing was not surprising. Less obvious, however, are the cities here in southern Utah; small towns that rarely make the news for murder or violent crimes, at least around these parts.
With the eighth most violent crimes in the state, Washington may not have had quite as many violent crimes per capita as Ogden, but when it came to murder in particular, Washington was a bit higher in the rankings.
According to the report, “In 2012, Washington had the third most murders per capita in the state. It also had the sixth highest number of property crimes per capita—most of which were thefts, followed by burglaries. This made for the sixth highest number of crimes per capita overall.”
And Cedar isn’t much better. The bad news: Cedar City had the fifth highest number of murders and more broadly, the sixth highest number of violent crimes per capita. According to Movoto, “We feel we’d be remiss if we didn’t give all the facts. Sure, Utah is one of the safer states in general, and yes it is almost unrealistically beautiful, but there are also some places within its borders that are downright dangerous.”
Incidentally, though it didn’t make the Top 10 most dangerous places in Utah, St. George ranked 16th which isn’t too far off. And if you are looking for the safest location, Heber is the place. See you in Heber? Maybe not, I hear it’s cold there.
Movoto is an online real estate brokerage based in San Mateo, CA. They have been recognized for their unique approach to city-based research by major news organizations such as Forbes and U.S. News.
