How Safe Is Your Town? Security Firm Ranks Safest Cities In Ohio

If you're looking for a safe place to live in Ohio, you might consider the city of Dover in Tuscarawas County. Or, perhaps, Chester Township in Geauga County or Bay Village in Cuyahoga County. Dover, Chester Township and Bay Village top a list of the safest communities in Ohio, according to the home security company SafeWise, which ranks the 100 safest cities in the country every year based on the latest FBI data.

Dover, which had 0.47 violent crimes per 1,000 people in 2015, sits at No. 24 on the company's list of the safest cities across the nation. The community was the 10th safest community in Ohio in 2014. The report also noted that Bellevue, Poland Township in Mahoning County, Hudson, and Hamilton Township in Warren County had no reports of murder, rape, or robbery.

Safewise released its safest cities report on Monday, noting that the overall crime rate of the Buckeye State decreased from 2014 to 2015, and is the 24th safest state in the nation. The communities that made the Top 20 list have crime rates below the state and national averages. People living in the communities on the Top 20 list had less than one in a 1,000 chance of experiencing a violent crime in 2015—almost 75% less than the national average.

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To compile the data, Safewise eliminated cities with less than 5,000 residents and cities that did not submit a complete crime report to the FBI. Then the group narrowed it down to the number of reported violent and property crimes and calculated the likelihood of these crimes occurring out of 1,000 people.

Here is the complete list of the Top 20 safest communities in Ohio:

1. Dover
2. Chester Township
3. Bay Village
4. Bellevue
5. Poland Township
6. Hudson
7. Brecksville
8. Olmsted Township
9. Seven Hills
10. Powell
11. North Ridgeville
12. Hamilton Township, Warren County
13. Sagamore Hills
14. Montville Township
15. Sylvania Township
16. Aurora
17. Clearcreek Township
18. Springboro
19. Fostoria
20. Brunswick