A new study from the National Council for Home Safety and Security released Wednesday named Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island as Washington’s safest city, based on 2018 data.
Port Angeles ranked 46th out of 73 cities studied. Sequim and Forks were not included in the study.
The Safest Cities Report is an annual study that examined crime data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting tool and law enforcement agencies to provide statewide rankings of city safety.
Port Angeles, with a population of just under 20,000, had 106 violent crimes and 823 property crimes in 2018. That put our crime rate per 1,000 residents at 46-and-a-half.
The study noted that the state of Washington as a whole saw a 5.6% decrease in property crime and 4.4% increase in violent crime between 2018 and 2019.