Utah’s 10 Safest Cities of 2022

The SafeWise Team is pleased to release the eighth annual Safest Cities report.

See if your city made the full list.

Utah is less concerned overall about crime and safety than most of the country, with the least-worrisome issues being gun violence and the pandemic. Chances are people who live in one of Utah’s 10 safest cities have even less to worry about, especially when it comes to violent and property crime.

• Violent crime rates
• Property crime rates
• Interesting findings
• The Safest Cities
• Methodology
• How to make a safe home anywhere
• How other cities compare
• How other states compare

Utah is one of only nine states to see rises in both violent and property crime rates this year. Utah's violent crime rate continued a multi-year rise in 2022. It increased from 2.4 incidents per 1,000 people in 2021 to 2.6 this year.

The property crime rate in The Beehive State ended a recent downward trend, moving up from 21.7 incidents per 1,000 people in 2021 to 24.6 this year. This 15% increase is one of the steepest this year at 15%—only Pennsylvania saw a larger gain at 17%.

Within the Mountain region, Utah has the third-lowest violent crime rate, just behind Wyoming (2.3) and Idaho (2.4). Although Utah had one of the lowest property crime rates in the region last year, it's now the third-highest in the region—below New Mexico (28.4) and Colorado (28.3). This is despite a decline in the overall rate in the region.

At a national level, Utah is well below the collective violent crime rate (US 4.0) but 26% higher than the property crime rate (US 19.6). Among all 50 states, Utah has the tenth-lowest violent crime rate and the eleventh-highest property crime rate.

Utahns are 23% less worried about crime and safety than Americans in most other states—and 66% say Utah is a safe state to call home. State of Safety survey respondents also reported fewer personal experiences with all types of crime this survey year.

Even though run-ins with property crime fell 35% year over year, Utahns still had more property crime experiences than most of the country—20% versus 18% nationwide. In general, Utahns' levels of concern line up with their personal experiences of crime.

• ​​46% worry about package theft happening to them, and 27% reported a package theft in the 12 months prior to the survey. Both the level of concern and the reported experience are above national averages (45% and 20%, respectively).
• Reported experience with gun violence fell from 9% to 2% this survey year. (The national average is 8%.)
• Utahns’ concern about gun violence happening to them is 32% below the national average of 38%.
• 54% of Utahns think crime is increasing versus 7% that think it’s decreasing. Across the US, 66% think crime is on the rise and 8% think it’s in decline.
• Utah has the eighth-lowest level of daily concern about crime and safety in the country.

We asked Utah residents which crimes they worry may happen to them. See if Utahns are concerned about the same crime issues as the rest of the country.

View the complete 2022 State of Safety report.

Experience with violent crime dropped from 15% in our previous survey year to just 5% in this year’s survey—despite the state’s violent crime rate rising by 12%. When it comes to which crime Utahns fear could happen to them, gun violence and violent crime are the least worrying.

• Utah reports 1.4 fewer violent crime incidents per 1,000 people than the national average.
• The violent crime rate in the safest cities (0.7) is 73% lower than the statewide rate of 2.6 incidents per 1,000 people.
• The safest cities bucked a statewide trend by reporting fewer overall violent crime incidents than last year—none of the cities reported more than 39 total incidents.
• Robberies, murders, and aggravated assaults each make up a smaller percentage of violent crimes in Utah than they do across most of the country.
• Rape makes up a significantly higher percentage of violent crimes in Utah than it does nationally (21% versus 10% nationwide).
• 27% of survey respondents use some form of personal protection like a stun gun or pepper spray (US 34%).

• 41% named gun violence as their top safety concern (US 53%), making it the biggest daily worry in Utah—5 percentage points higher than Utah’s overall daily concern about safety.
• Despite high daily concern, only 26% of Utahns are most worried about a gun violence incident actually happening to them (US 38%).
• Utah saw 1 mass shooting incident in 2021—the same as in 2020.
• 37% of survey respondents say they worry about police violence daily (US 40%), and 63% have confidence in law enforcement (US 56%).

Property crime is the most worrisome category of crime in The Beehive State, which may reflect the overall increase in the property crime rate this year. In fact, property crime as a whole, and package theft specifically, are the most concerning crimes for Utahns.

• 44% are concerned about property crime happening to them—2 percentage points higher than the national average of 42%.
• The property crime rate in Utah’s safest cities (9.2) is over 50% lower than the national property crime rate (19.6) and over 60% lower than statewide. The safest cities reported fewer total property crime incidents this year.
• Larceny-theft is the most prevalent property crime in Utah, making up 75% of all reported property crime—5% higher than the proportion nationally.
• Burglary is less common in Utah than throughout the country, accounting for 12% of all property crime in the state, versus 16% of all property crime in the US.
• 57% of survey respondents use some form of property protection (US 60%), with firearms used most often.
• 18% say the security of their property has been affected by the pandemic (US 29%).

For the purposes of this report, the terms “dangerous” and “safest” refer explicitly to crime rates as calculated from FBI crime data—no other characterization of any community is implied or intended.

• 33 cities met criteria to be considered for ranking.
• Lone Peak, the combined police department for Alpine and Highland, is new to the list this year, and the new number 1.
• Fourth-ranked Herriman is also new this year and is the largest city on our list with a population of 56,312.
• Farmington saw the largest jump in ranking this year, moving up 7 spots to land at number 2.
• 2 cities improved in rank this year (Farmington and Saratoga Springs) and 2 kept their spots from last year (Pleasant Grove and Clinton).
• Spanish Fork, last year's safest city, dropped 9 spots to land at tenth place.
• The violent crime rate in the safest cities is 0.7 incidents per 1,000 people—73% lower than the state rate (2.6).
• There was only 1 reported murder in the safest cities this year compared to 102 statewide.
• Half of the safest cities reported fewer than 25 total violent crimes.
• Lone Peak has the lowest violent crime rate in the state at 0.2 incidents per 1,000 people. The city had just 5 violent crime reports this year.
• The property crime rate in the safest cities is 9.2 incidents per 1,000 people—63% lower than the state rate (24.6).
• Syracuse reported the lowest property crime rate for the second consecutive year with just 7.2 incidents per 1,000 people.
• None of the safest cities reported fewer than 232 total property crimes.

Learn how we identified the safest cities on our methodology page.

Whether your city made our list or not, we encourage everyone to be proactive about home security. One of the best ways to stop a burglary before it happens is to add a home security system.

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We calculated crime rates for every city in the state that met our population threshold, based on the state’s median population. See how the remaining cities ranked in the list below.

NOTE: If you don’t see your city on the list, it means that it was below the population threshold or didn’t submit a complete crime report to the FBI in 2020.

Click on the state image or dropdown menu below to check out the safest cities for each state.

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FBI: Crime Data Explorer, Accessed March 8, 2022.

US Census Bureau, "Data Explorer," Accessed January 24, 2022.

Best Places, “Find a Place Search Tool,” Accessed January 24, 2022.

SafeWise, “2021 State of Safety survey,” Accessed March 8, 2022.

Gun Violence Archive, “Past Summary Ledgers,” Accessed January 24, 2022.

Gun Violence Archive, “General Methodology,” Accessed March 8, 2022.

Melody Hicks, Ben Stickle, Joshua Harms, American Journal of Criminal Justice, “Assessing the Fear of Package Theft,” January 04, 2021. Accessed March 8, 2022.

For definitions and more on data sources, see our methodology page.