Hartselle ranks sixth safest place in Alabama
The City of Hartselle has been ranked as the No. 6 safest place in Alabama, according to rankings released by Movoto Real Estate Blog.
The blog based its rankings on the 2012 FBI Uniform Crime Report and covers all places in Alabama with populations of 10,000 or larger. It analyzed statistics on the following seven crimes: murder, rape, assault, burglary, theft and vehicle theft.
The statistics were then divided into four categories including murders, violent crimes, property crimes and total crimes. The crimes were then calculated to find its occurrence per 100,000 persons.
Each city was ranked 1 through 52 in each category. The scores for murders, violent crimes and property crimes counted for 30 percent each of the total score, with the final 10 percent coming from the total crimes ranking.
Decatur ranked 33rd overall while Athens was 12th. Cullman was not ranked in this list.
“Hartselle kept up up the trend of no murders reported in 2012, and had the sixth lowest violent crime on out list,” the blog reported. “The property crime was admittedly a bit higher than some others in our top 10 and ranked No. 11 for that criteria. In particular, this small city had 2,128 thefts per 100,000 and 542 burglaries per 100,000. That’s still quite a bit lower than the majority of places on our overall list.
“While the chance of being a victim of a crime was 1 in 34 here, quite a bit higher than elsewhere in the top 10, the likelihood of being the victim of a violent crime here was very very low.”
Here are the top 10 on the list:
1. City of Helena
2. City of Mountain Brook
3. City of Vestavia Hills
4. City of Pleasant Grove
5. City of Alabaster
6. City of Hartselle
7. City of Fort Payne
8. City of Madison
9. City of Hoover
10. City of Moody
To see the full rankings, click here.