Zionsville ranked as the no. 1 safest town or city in Indiana
By Sophie Pappas
According to the recent numbers from Movoto Real Estate, a national real estate brokerage specializing in relocation services and statistics, Zionsville is the place to be.
“It’s not surprise that Zionsville is number one,” said Nick Johnson, a public relations officer for the company.
The national statistics show that Zionsville is the safest town or city in Indiana, with a less-than-0.25 percent chance of any resident being the victim of crime. This comes down to approximately a one in 518 chance.
“We calculate this according to population size, so all towns and cities are ranked equally,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that his company crunches numbers to show people around the country where the best, and worst, places to live are.
“It’s just one way to help our clients and our communities start the discussion about where to live and where to not live,” Johnson said.
Movoto uses crime records from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, along with local police records and state statistics.
“The 0.25 percent is really very low,” Johnson said. “It’s actually one of the lowest in the country.”
Johnson, who is stationed in Lafayette, said he frequently drives to Zionsville for business.
“Anyone who lives there knows just how great it is,” he said. “And so I don’t think [people]should be too surprised but they should be proud. No one’s going to dispute that Zionsville, Carmel and Fishers are some of the top places to live.”
According to the Zionsville Police Dept.’s Chief of Police Robert Knox, this is just one statistic that shows how hard the department is working to keep everyone safe.
“I believe that the town of Zionsville is a very unique community to live and raise our families, however I also believe every community is unique in their own way,” Knox said in an e-mail to Current in Zionsville. “There are many facets that make Zionsville a safe community. Not only the police department’s efforts to provide a safe community but many of our residents, elected officials and all of the town government departments are very involved in the community as well.”
Knox said that he assigns an officer to be a liaison to each homeowners association, in order to address any community concerns.
“Many of our subdivisions have a neighborhood watch program in place, all of which speaks to the community policing that we strive to provide to our citizens,” Knox said. “The Zionsville Police Department is one spoke in the wheel that makes Zionsville the great community that it is.”
How were the towns ranked?
1. Only towns with populations of 10,000 people or more were considered
2. Then information was gathered from each town that did not report data to the FBI (This step eliminated places like Indianapolis.)
3. This narrowed the list of towns and cities to 62, which were looked at in terms of:
Murder
Rape
Robbery
Assault
Burglary
Theft
Vehicle theft
4. The total number of crimes was averaged so that murders, violent crimes, and property crimes accounted for 30 percent of the overall score, where total crimes made up 10.
5. The lowest scoring towns are the safest places to live, with the higher scoring towns being the more dangerous.
Facts
- Zionsville had a population of nearly 24,000 people, and still had no reported violent crimes—that’s no murders, no rapes, no robberies, and no assaults per 100,000 people.
- There were just 193 property crimes reported. This included 42 burglaries, 147 thefts and four vehicle thefts.
- Residents in Zionsville can rest easy, with just a one in 518 chance of being the victim of a crime, the lowest odds of any place in the state.
