Murrieta Makes 'Top 50 Safest CA Cities' List: Report

MURRIETA, CA – Living in a safe city is important, but how does Murrieta stack up? SafeWise, an online safety resource, analyzed California cities to find the 50 safest cities, and Murrieta came in at No. 2. Not bad, considering the Golden State has a total of 482 municipalities.

On the top 50 list, 62% of cities that made the list came from Southern California.

To compile this report, SafeWise analysts reviewed the most recent 2016 FBI crime statistics and census population data. The evaluation is based on the number of reported violent crimes (aggravated assault, murder, rape and robbery) in each city per 1,000 people. If there was a tie, they also factored in the number of property crimes (burglary, arson, larceny-theft, and car theft). Cities that fell below identified population thresholds or failed to submit a complete FBI crime report were excluded from the ranking system.

According to the SafeWise analysis, there are 111,043 residents living in Murrieta, but only recorded 0.44 violent crimes per 1,000 people, and 14.44 property crimes per 1,000 people. For the total crime in Murrieta, 3.06 percnet violent, 96.94 percent property

"We were impressed to find California's fifty safest cities reported an average of just one violent crime for every 1,000 people—that's 80% lower than the US average, according to the most recent FBI crime report," SafeWise security analyst Alexia Chianis said. "Property crime rates were also quite low, with well over half of the cities reporting fewer than twenty crimes of this type per 1,000 people."

The top 10 safest cities in California are:

1. Danville
2. Murrieta
3. San Ramon
4. Irvine
5. Aliso Viejo
6. Yorba Linda
7. Lincoln
8. Rancho Palos Verdes
9. Chino Hills
10. Mission Viejo

To read the complete report, visit SafeWise.

--Photo by Renee Schiavone/Emily Holland contributed to this report