Arizona’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.

Higher-than-average crime rates may be the reason nearly half of Arizona residents worry about their safety every single day. That high concern echoes rising violent crime numbers statewide, but for those who live in Arizona’s safest cities, sleep may come easier at night.

• 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

Like the rest of the US, Arizona saw a rise in its violent crime rate this year, but property crime continued to decline.

Despite a 7% drop in the state’s per capita property crime rate, The Grand Canyon State still comes in higher than the US property crime rate. And a 10% jump in Arizona’s violent crime rate once again kept this sunny state above the US violent crime rate.

Arizona’s level of daily concern about safety jumped nine percentage points from 40% to 49%. A rising violent crime rate could be one reason for increased concern. Violent crime incidents rose from 4.5 per 1,000 people to 4.8, reflecting national trends.

Regionally, Arizona has the second-highest violent crime rate after New Mexico (7.8), but the state does better when it comes to property crime. Property crime incidents dipped from 24.4 per 1,000 people to 22.3. That drop gives Arizona the fourth-highest property crime rate in the Mountain region—down from the second-highest last year.

Among all 50 states, Arizona has the ninth-highest violent crime rate and the fifteenth-highest property crime rate.

Despite higher overall concern and crime rates, Arizona respondents to our State of Safety survey told us they’ve had less personal experience with crime than most of the country. Across the board, fewer Arizonans reported falling prey to violent crime, property crime, gun violence, and package theft.

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

View the complete 2022 State of Safety report.

Arizona sees more violent crime than most of the US, but fewer survey respondents reported personal experiences with violent crime. On some level, residents seem tuned in to those higher crime rates with more daily concern and more people taking proactive personal protection measures.

• Every day, 51% of Arizonans worry about a violent crime happening to them—that’s 10 percentage points higher than the national average.
• 8% of survey respondents reported having a personal experience with violent crime in the 12 months prior to the survey—2 percentage points below the national average.
• Arizona’s violent crime rate rose 10.4% year over year.
• 42% of Arizona survey respondents use some form of personal protection like pepper spray (US 34%).
• 44% say their personal safety has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, matching the national average.

• Gun violence stands out as the safety issue Arizonans are most worried about on a daily basis—57% are highly concerned about it every day, versus 53% nationwide.
• Only 7% reported having a personal experience with gun violence in the past year, while 49% say they worry about gun violence happening to them. That’s 11 percentage points higher than the average number of Americans worried about gun violence daily.
• Arizona saw 6 mass shootings in 2021—2 more than in 2020.

Arizona sees more property crime than most states, so it’s no surprise that property crime causes the most worry in The Grand Canyon State.

Even though reports of personal experiences with property crime fell year over year—along with the statewide property crime rate—Arizonans are more proactive about home security than most Americans.

• Worry about property crime jumped nearly 24% year over year, despite property crime decreasing by 7% statewide.

• 14% of survey respondents reported having a personal experience with property crime in the 12 months prior to the survey—that’s 8 percentage points below the previous survey year.

• 18% of Arizonans fell prey to porch pirates in our latest survey, which is 2 percentage points lower than the national average.

• 72% of survey respondents use some form of property protection (US 60%), with security cameras and guard dogs used most often (35% each).

• 32% 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.

• 31 cities qualified to be ranked in Arizona this year.

• All of the safest cities have lower crime rates than the state, the Mountain region, and the US.

• Florence is the number one safest city in Arizona for the third consecutive year.¹

• 90% of the cities made our list for the second year in a row, with Buckeye making its debut in the top 10 this year.

• 5 cities improved in rank this year:  Buckeye, Maricopa, Prescott Valley, Sahuarita, and San Luis.

• 6 of the safest cities (60%) had fewer than 100 total violent crime incidents each.

• Gilbert and Surprise are the two most populous cities and reported nearly half (49%) of all violent crimes among the safest cities and 53% of all property crimes.

• Florence is the only city to report fewer than 100 total property crimes.

VC=Violent crime
PC=Property crime

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 as calculated using FBI data. To request a report of the remaining cities in your state, sign up for our email newsletter (we make it easy in a quick form below!) or email info@safewise.com with the subject line: Safest Cities Full Report.

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.

• Best Home Security Systems
• Best Home Security Cameras
• Best Video Doorbell Cameras
• Burglary Stats & Facts
• The Most Burglarized City in Every State

1. It has come to our attention that the population of Florence may include a significant number of incarcerated individuals, which may help drive down the per capita crime rates. We appreciate these nuances and are considering their potential impact to future reports. See our methodology for more information about population data in our rankings.

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.