Report says Mattawa is safest city in state
MATTAWA — If you are a Mattawa resident then you have the bragging rights to say that you live in the safest city in Washington.
According to a recent report from SafeWise, a company that touts itself as the “authority” on safety and home security news, Mattawa boats a number of helpful citizens and a proactive law enforcement community.
SafeWise calculated the safest cities in Washington by reviewing the FBI’s crime report statistics from 2015 and taking into account population density. All cities with less than 2,000 people were disqualified from the taking part in the survey, as well as cities that did not submit a complete crime report to the FBI.
The statistics gathered were boiled down to violent crimes, such as aggravated assault, murder, rape and robbery, and property crimes, such as burglary, arson, theft and vehicle theft, in every city. SafeWise then calculated the likelihood of violent crimes and property crimes occurring out of 1,000 people in every city. Ninety percent of the cities on the list had less than 15 violent crimes, with 75 percent of the cities reporting less than 200 property crimes.
Mattawa came in at the top of SafeWise’s list of the 20 safest cities in Washington thanks in part to only reporting four violent crimes and 23 property crimes in the FBI’s 2015 crime report. Per 1,000 people in Mattawa, there is only a .87 percent chance of a violent crime occurring and a 4.99 percent chance of a property crime occurring.
The only other city in central Washington to crack the top 20 was Connell, which was ranked as the third safest city due to a 1.22 percent chance of a violent crime occurring per 1,000 people and a 6.27 percent chance of a property crime occurring.
Expanding the list to the top 100 safest cities in the state, Othello came in as the 86th safest city and Ephrata narrowly made the cut by coming in as the 94th safest city. Washington as a state is 17th in the nation for violent crimes and 47th for property crimes. Each of the cities on SafeWise’s top 20 list have property crime rates that are below the national average.