Wyoming’s 5 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.

Wyoming is the second-least-worried state when it comes to daily concern about crime and safety. The state (and its safest cities) also boasts some of the lowest crime rates in the nation.

• 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

Wyoming's violent crime rate went up this year from 2.1 incidents per 1,000 people to 2.3. This is up 9% from last year and continues a two-year trend of increases. Property crime also rose this year, moving up from 15.7 incidents per 1,000 people to 16.1—a 3% increase. It's one of only nine states that saw increases in both crime categories.

Within the Mountain region, Wyoming continues to have the lowest rate of violent crimes, just ahead of Idaho (2.4) and Utah (2.6). The Cowboy State has the second-lowest property crime rate in the region behind Idaho (11.1).

On a national level, Wyoming sees some of the lowest rates of violent and property crime. Among all 50 states, Wyoming has the seventh-lowest violent crime rate and the fourteenth-lowest property crime rate.

Wyoming is the least-concerned state in our State of Safety survey when it comes to property crime, gun violence, and the pandemic. Regarding violent crime, Wyoming is the second-least concerned behind Oregon and Vermont (tied), and it’s the third-least concerned about package theft.

Decreased reports of personal experiences with crime accompany the state’s lower concern levels. Experience with both violent and property crime dropped four percentage points each year over year.

Experience with gun violence fell from 8% to 2% year over year. With only 14% reporting a package theft during the survey year, Wyoming had the second-lowest incidence of package theft, behind Arkansas with 12%.

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

View the complete 2022 State of Safety report.

There was a noticeable rise in violent crime across The Cowboy State this year, despite reports of personal experience with violent crime falling from 13% to 9% year over year.

• Violent crime in Wyoming has increased by 10% over the past 2 years, with 9% of that gain happening in the last year.
• Wyoming's violent crime rate is 43% lower than the national level.
• Murder and robbery account for fewer violent crimes in Wyoming than national levels. The safest cities had 0 reports of murder or robbery this year.
• Rape makes up a larger portion of violent crimes in Wyoming (24%) than in most of the country (US 10%)—only two states report a greater percentage of rapes: Maine (33%) and New Hampshire (27%). Rape reports in Wyoming’s safest cities are far below the state percentage at 6%.
• Aggravated assaults are the most common violent crime in Wyoming, making up about the same proportion of all violent crimes (69%) as it does nationwide (US 70%).
• 46% of residents use some form of personal protection like pepper spray—35% more than the national average. This is surprising considering Wyoming’s low concern for violent crime.
• 28% say their personal safety has been affected by the pandemic (US 44%). Wyoming worries less about COVID-19 than any other state.

• 14% of survey respondents are most worried about a gun violence incident happening to them—63% lower than the national average and the lowest concern of all states.
• ​​27% of Wyomingites named gun violence their top safety concern (US 53%).
• 22% worry about police violence daily—the second-lowest concern in the country—and 69% have confidence in law enforcement, the third-highest confidence among all states.
• There were 0 mass shooting incidents in Wyoming in the last 3 years.

Property crime consistently fell in Wyoming for three consecutive years but increased by 3% this year. Despite low concern, Wyoming uses more security measures than most other states.

• Wyoming’s property crime rate is 16% lower than the national average of 19.6.
• Larceny-theft is the most prevalent property crime, accounting for 77% of all crime statewide.
• Nationally, larceny-theft accounts for 71% of property crime, and in Wyoming’s safest cities it makes up 81%.
• Burglaries make up 13% of all property crime in Wyoming, 3 percentage points behind the national proportion. In the safest cities, burglaries make up 14% of all property crime.
• 65% of Wyoming residents use some form of property protection (US 60%) with firearms on top at 49%.
• 13% 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.

• 16 cities met criteria to be considered for ranking.
• Worland is Wyoming's safest city for the second consecutive year—it reported only 35 total crimes this year.
• Buffalo is new to the list and the top 5 this year.
• Douglas saw the biggest improvement in rank this year, moving up 3 spots to number 2.
• Sheridan (population 17,991) is the most populous city on the list—it accounts for 54% of all property crime in the safest cities.
• The violent crime rate in the safest cities is 1.5 incidents per 1,000 people—35% lower than the state rate (2.3) and 63% lower than the national rate (4.0).
• Sheridan reported the lowest violent crime rate in the safest cities at 0.9 incidents per 1,000.
• Sixth-placed Lander had the lowest violent crime rate at 0.3. It's unusual for a city outside of our top rankings to have the lowest violent crime rate, but Lander's property crime rate is the fourth-highest among the cities that qualified to be considered for Wyoming's safest cities, which keeps it out of the top 5.
• There were 0 reported murders or robberies in the safest cities.
• The property crime rate in the safest cities is 10.7 incidents per 1,000 people—34% lower than the state rate (16.1) and 45% lower than the national rate (19.6).
• Worland (5.8) and Green River (6.6) reported the lowest property crime rates in the state.

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

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.