Safest Cities in New York, 2019

Overall, New York fares very well in terms of safety compared to the rest of the nation: its violent crime rate is 24th lowest in the country, but the state is just 5th in property crime. New York’s individual cities fare very well on our Safety Index, which is a combination of FBI crime statistics and law enforcement employee to resident ratio used to measure the safety of a given community. While an impressive 61 New York cities score a 0.3 or higher on the Safety Index, indicating a very high level of safety, let’s place our focus on the state’s top five safest cities.

New York State’s safest community is East Hampton Town, an affluent Long Island community which logged a very high 1.29 score on the Safety Index. East Hampton enjoys a low violent crime rate of 0.85 per 1,000 and a property crime rate of 11.34 per 1,000.

Not far behind is #2 Port Washington, another wealthy Long Island community known for its myriad parks, marinas and golf courses. The well-to-do community of 19K recorded a scant five violent crimes in 2017 for a rate of violent crime over 14 times lower than the national average.

Ranking #3 is Floral Park, our third Long Island community in a row. Floral Park logged a 0.98 Safety Index score based on a 0.56 per 1,000 violent crime rate and property crime rate below the national violent crime rate (a considerable feat). Behind it is Southold (#4), another very safe Long Island town with a violent crime rate under 1 per 1,000.

Rounding out New York’s top five safest cities is the first non-Long Island community, Mamaroneck of Westchester County, which averaged ONE violent crime per 1,000 residents.