By Mark Cowling | Casa Grande Dispatch
Florence was named the safest city in Arizona and the 17th safest in the United States in neighborhoodscout.com’s list of the “Top 100 Safest Cities in the U.S.”
Florence is the only Arizona municipality listed on the website’s 100 safest cities. The website says a person’s chances of becoming a victim of a violent crime is 1 in 751 in Florence, while the chances are 1 in 246 in Arizona.
The odds were also good for property crime, with a 1 in 131 chance of being a victim in Florence com- pared to 1 in 28 in Arizona.
Only cities with a minimum population of 25,000 were considered for the list. Two-thirds of Florence’s 25,517 residents are behind bars, with less access to call the police than other citizens. Corey Simons with neighborhoodscout.com said in a phone interview that incidents in prison that did not result in a town police report would not be included in the data.
The website determined the top 100 safest cities based on the size of the community and the amount of violent crimes per 1,000 residents. The report is based on “2011 year total data, released in final, nonpreliminary form in November 2012,” according to the website.
The site lists zero murders, one rape and one robbery in Florence and 32 assaults. The Florence Police Department’s year-end statistics for 2011 list zero murders, one rape, one rob- bery and 90 assaults.
Simons, with neighborhoodscout.com, could not explain the discrepancy in the number of assaults. He said the website’s numbers are from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting tool.
Florence Police Chief Daniel Hughes said it’s a difference in definition. The town’s 90 reported assaults include minor incidents that would not qualify for the neighborhoodscout.com survey, so “there could be some deviation.”
The website says it defines aggravated assault as: “An attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury.”
While proud to be No. 17, the police department is working on ways to move up, Hughes said.
