Kansas’s 20 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.

Crime rates and trends run about average in Kansas. But compared to the average American, Kansans are more likely to feel safe in their state and less likely to feel concerned about crime and safety on a daily basis.

• 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

The Sunflower State’s crime rates sit above the national average but don’t top the charts. Like most states, Kansas saw a year-over-year increase in violent crime and a decrease in property crime.

According to our latest State of Safety survey, 35% of Kansans feel concerned about their safety and security on a daily basis—down from 48% last year.

58% of Kansas residents feel safe in their state, which is above the national average of 55% and is the twelfth-highest percentage overall.

Kansans are less likely than the average American to believe that crime is increasing compared to last year. Kansas residents believe they’ll experience package theft more than general property crime, violent crime, or gun violence.

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

View the complete 2022 State of Safety report.

Kansas’s violent crime rate increased by 5% year over year, landing at 4.3 violent crimes per 1,000 people. That’s higher than the national average of 4.0.

Our State of Safety story paints a different picture, with just 3% of Kansas respondents claiming to have experienced violent crime in the 12 months prior to the survey. That’s the second-lowest percentage in the nation, topped only by New Hampshire’s 0%. It also represents a seven-percentage-point decrease from last year’s results in The Sunflower State.

Kansas respondents’ experiences with gun violence also declined by seven percentage points year over year, landing at 2% for our latest survey.

• Aggravated assault represents 82% of all violent crime in Kansas, which is 12 percentage points above the national average and the highest in the nation.
• Robbery accounts for 7% of all violent crime in Kansas, which is 12 percentage points below the national average and the fourth-lowest in the nation.
• Kansas is 1 of 17 states that reported more rapes than robberies.
• 8 people were injured and 2 were killed in 2 mass shooting events in Kansas during the 2022 reporting year.
• 24% of Kansas residents use some form of personal protection—10 percentage points below the national average.
• Firearms represent Kansans’ personal-protection method of choice, leading the way at 12%.
• 41% of Kansas residents say their personal safety has been affected by the pandemic (US 44%).

Property crime in Kansas decreased by 3% year over year and occurred at a rate of 22.0 per 1,000 people. This is above the national average of 19.6 and the second-highest rate in Kansas’s region, topped only by Missouri’s property crime rate of 25.3.

According to our State of Safety survey, Kansas residents experienced a more dramatic decrease in property crime. Whereas 30% of Kansas residents claimed to have experienced property crime on our 2021 survey, 18% claimed the same on our 2022 survey. This matches the national average.

Kansas residents are more concerned about package theft than property crime, violent crime, or gun violence, but survey respondents actually experienced general property crime (18%) more often than any other category.

• Kansas residents have the seventh-lowest level of concern regarding property crime: 34%.
• Larceny-theft accounts for 74% of all property crime in Kansas, exceeding the national average of 71%.
• Motor vehicle theft represents 11% of all property crime in Kansas, which is lower than the national average of 13%.
• 59% of Kansans use some form of property protection (US 60%), with guard dogs leading the way at 28%.
• 29% of Kansas residents say the security of their property has been affected by the pandemic, which matches the national sentiment.

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.

• 52 Kansas cities met the criteria for ranking this year.
• Hesston rocketed 10 positions up the list to land at the top this year, while Gardner took the biggest hit and fell 9 positions.
• 6 of Kansas’s 20 safest cities saw decreases in violent crime: Hesston, Goddard, Prairie Village, Louisburg, Leawood, and Osawatomie.
• 2 cities saw decreases in property crime: Hesston and Eudora.
• Praire Village was the only safest city to report a murder (1).
• 3 cities reported 5 or fewer burglaries: Goddard, Scott City, and Hugoton.
• The most populous city on this year’s list—Lenexa—accounts for 28% of all violent crime and 27% of all property crime among Kansas’s 20 safest cities.

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
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• Burglary Stats & Facts
• The Most Burglarized City in Every State

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.