On December 6th, the Town of Oro Valley published the following Media Release:
Oro Valley is ranked safest city in Arizona
Oro Valley, Arizona (December 6, 2017) – According to recent rankings released by Safe Home, the Town of Oro Valley has been named 2017 Safest City in Arizona, based on a population of at least 38,000. Additionally, the Town ranks in the 25th percentile nationwide for safest cities. Rankings are based primarily on crime reports, U.S. Census data, and other statistics such as police officer ratio and demographics.
This prompted one of our readers to send us the following email:
No one at Town Hall will ever be willing to admit this but, the primary reasons that the town is statistically safe (from a criminal standpoint) are:
• Oro Valley is not a tourist draw
• It is not on a tourist route
• Oro Valley does not have an entertainment district (e.g. bars, strip joints)
• It is not a well-known location
• Tucson itself is the crime draw
• Crime in a given jurisdiction is nearly entirely derived from the caliber of individuals residing there, followed by home ownership rates (versus transient renters), followed by business sector participation rates.
Another LOVE reader submitted these thoughts:
There is much more to police work and the police department than what is revealed in the FBI crime reports. Additionally, they used FBI reports from 2015 to conclude that Oro Valley was the safest city in 2017.
Additional Reading
The following links are worth reading if you want to understand the perils of relying upon crime rates:
Read the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics: Their Proper Use HERE
Read the FBI Uniform Crime Report Handbook HERE
LOVE asks that you keep all of this in mind whenever the mayor and council attempt to take credit for Oro Valley being named the safest city in Arizona (and you know they will, especially since four of them are up for re-election in 2018).
