Big Lake was named the second safest city in the State of Minnesota for 2020.

True to its friendly image, the Land of 10,000 Lakes has violent and property crime rates below national levels. What’s more, violent crime has dropped in Minnesota for the last 10 years straight, including an 8% drop between 2017 and 2018.

The safest city in Minnesota is Orono, a city of about 20,000 located on the north shore of Lake Minnetonka. Crime is nearly nonexistent in Orono: the city recorded just six violent crimes in 2018 and has a property crime rate less-than-a-third of the national average.

Big Lake is Minnesota’s second safest city. A quiet lakeside community known for its annual “Spud Fest”, Big Lake has the lowest property crime rate in the state, along with a violent crime rate of exactly 1 offense per 1,000. Their population is listed at 11, 036

Minnesota’s third safest “city” is the combined jurisdiction of the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department, comprising parts of the communities of Excelsior, Greenwood, Shorewood, and Tonka Bay. Together, they logged just three violent crimes in 2018.

Earning the #4 spot is Minnetrista, which continues Minnesota’s streak of remarkably low violent crime by posting a 0.39 per 1,000 violent crime rate in 2018, coupled with a property crime rate below 10 per 1,000.

The city of Stillwater, located on the St. Croix River just west of Wisconsin, rounds out the list of Minnesota’s five safest cities. Known as the shooting location for many popular Hollywood films, including Fargo and Grumpy Old Men, Stillwater logged 2018 violent and property crime rates of about one-third of national levels.

To identify the safest cities, the National Council For Home Safety and Security (Alarms.org) reviewed the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics. They eliminated any cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI and cities with populations under 10,000. This left 3,381 cities (out of a total of 9,251). 

There are two broad classifications of crimes: violent crimes and non-violent crimes. According to the FBI, “Violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses that involve force or threat of force. Property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The object of the theft-type offenses is the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims. ”

Alarms.org computed the total number of crimes reported by each city by adding violent crimes and property crimes. They then created a crime rate as the number of crimes per 1,000 population. Then they transformed the total crime rate variable so that the skewness was reduced and normalized.

Data from 2,831 law enforcement agencies was then collected to determine police adequacy (TotalCrimes / Number of police employees).  Alarms.org consider that the smaller the police adequacy statistic is, the safer the city is. This variable was also transformed and normalized.

Finally, the two variables were combined to create a safety score for each city.

“This is something we should all be proud of,” said Big Lake PD Deputy Chief Matt Hayen. “If it wasn’t for our citizens, elected officials, city leaders, and all of our city departments working together, we would not be able to enjoy this community we all love.” 

“Thank you for your continued effort in supporting our police department and helping us keep the crime out of our city!”