Louisiana’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.

Louisiana reported the highest property crime rate in the nation. But it’s not all doom and gloom: property crime in The Pelican State decreased by 10% year over year.

On the other hand, violent crime rose by 14%, and most Louisianans are concerned about experiencing violent crime or gun violence.

• 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

Louisiana has the highest property crime rate and the fourth-highest violent crime rate in the US. Violent crime in Louisiana rose by 14% year over year and property crime decreased by 10%.

According to our latest State of Safety survey, 34% of Louisianans feel safe in their state, putting them in a tie with New Mexicans as those least likely to feel safe. On average, 55% of Americans claim to feel safe in their state.

Louisianans are more likely than the average American to experience violent crime, and violent crime was the top concern among Louisiana respondents.

71% of Louisianans think crime is increasing, which is higher than the national average of 66%.

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

View the complete 2022 State of Safety report.

54% of Louisiana residents worry about violent crime happening to them, and 50% worry about gun violence. These are among the highest levels of concern in the country.

This fear seems substantiated by Louisiana’s violent crime rate of 6.4, which is the fourth-highest in the nation and represents a 14% increase compared to the previous reporting year. That’s the seventh-largest violent crime rate increase nationwide.

14% of Louisiana respondents claimed to have experienced a violent crime in the 12 months prior to the survey, which is down from 20% last year but still the highest in its region.

• Violent crime accounts for 18% of all crime in Louisiana (US 17%).
• 39% of Louisiana residents use some form of personal protection (US 34%).
• Firearms are the most popular personal protection among Louisiana residents (20%).
• 41% of Louisianans say their personal safety has been affected by the pandemic (US 44%).
• Gun violence experiences rose from 6% to 11% year over year.

• 141 people were injured and 22 were killed in 32 mass shooting events in Louisiana this reporting year.
• The number of mass shootings in Louisiana increased by 19% year over year (from 27 to 32). The national average increase was 13%.
• Louisiana experienced the seventh-highest number of mass shooting incidents nationwide this reporting year.
• Louisiana’s mass shootings accounted for 5% of all mass shootings nationwide.

49% of Louisiana survey respondents said they worried about experiencing property crime. The same percentage felt concerned about package theft. Both figures are above the national averages (42% and 45%, respectively) but represent neither the highest nor lowest levels of concern in the nation.

That’s somewhat surprising considering Louisiana’s property crime rate of 28.8 is the highest in the nation.

Even though Louisiana’s property crime rate is high, it represents a 10% decrease year over year. Our survey results also show that Louisianans experienced a decrease in property crime, falling from 35% in our 2021 report to 21% in our latest survey.

• 24% of Louisiana respondents claimed to have experienced package theft in the 12 months prior to the survey, which is the fifth-highest percentage in the nation.
• Motor vehicle theft accounts for 9% of all property crime in Louisiana (US 13%), which is one of the lowest percentages in the nation.
• 66% of Louisianans use some form of property protection (US 60%).
• 38% say the security of their property has been affected by the pandemic (US 29%).

• Louisianans prefer to protect their properties with security cameras (40%) and security systems (39%).
• Along with residents of New Mexico, Louisianans are the most likely Americans to use security systems to protect their properties. These states also tie for the lowest percentage of residents who feel safe: 34%.
• Louisiana residents are the second-most likely Americans to protect their properties with security cameras. Only Nevada residents use security cameras more (41%).

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 Louisiana cities met the criteria for ranking.
• Harahan moved up 1 position to clinch the top spot on this year’s list, and Youngsville held on to third place for the second year in a row.
• Gretna made the biggest leap up the list, moving up 14 spots to land in eighth place.
• Harahan ties with Scott for the lowest violent crime rate (0.9) but Scott sits in 4th place due to a property crime rate that’s more than 3 times higher than Harahan’s.
• Harahan, Mandeville, Scott, Zachary, and Gretna saw decreases in both violent crime and property crime rates.
• The most populous city on the list—Kenner—accounts for 31% of all violent crime and 33% of all property crime among Louisiana’s 10 safest cities.
• Only 3 cities have property crime rates below the national average: Harahan, Mandeville, and Youngsville.

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.

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois

Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana

Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania

Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

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

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.