Arlington County is the safest city in the country, according to national data compiled by the website MoneyGeek.
Arlington beat out 303 localities for the distinction by having the lowest societal cost of crime, estimated at $132 per person — or $31.3 million total — in 2019.
That means that the direct and indirect costs to Arlington and its 237,000 residents as a result of violent and property crimes is lower than any other U.S. jurisdiction with more than 100,000 people.
The second safest city in the U.S. is Thousand Oaks, California, with a crime cost per capita of $163, followed by Allen, Texas, at $176.
“Behind all these averages that people like to cite about the crime rates in different communities are individual people and their decisions about how they choose to engage in their community,” Brown University professor Jesse Bruhn told MoneyGeek.
According to the website:
The direct economic costs of crime to individuals and society include medical and mental health care needs of victims, damage to and loss of property and police and corrections costs. Aside from the imminent danger of crime, people living in higher crime areas see depressed home values and pay higher prices for crucial needs, including home, renters and auto insurance.
St Louis, Missouri, was named the most dangerous city, with $9,334 in crime per capita. It was followed by Baltimore, Maryland, at $8,179 and Detroit, Michigan, at $7,080.