Winner Ranked 5th as Safest City

Based on data from the most recent”FBI Crime Report, the chance of being a victim of crime in South Dakota’s five safest cities is remarkably low. The SafeWise Report provided the information for this story.

Winner is ranked fifth as the top safest cities in South Dakota. Brandon is rated No. 1 followed by Sisseton, Summerset, Lennox and Winner.

In fact, no city on our list experienced more than twenty-five crimes in 2015. Reviewing the data further, we found that these cities reported fewer than five crimes for every 1,000 residents, whereas roughly twenty-nine crimes occurred per 1,000 people nationally during this period.

In all, the state’s five safest cities reported just nineteen violent crimes, only one of which was a murder. And two cities—Brandon and Summerset—reported no incidents of violent crime at all. The nominal property crime rate among these cities is equally impressive. Altogether, the five Safest Cities in South Dakota cited just fifty-seven property crimes. Of these, only eight were burglaries. Brandon, Summerset, Lennox, and Winner reported two burglaries each, and Sisseton—the second Safest City in South Dakota—reported none. The number of reported break-ins is especially low considering the safest cities on our list represent a total of nearly 20,000 citizens.
While South Dakota’s statewide crime rate is slightly lower than the national average, it’s still prudent to take a proactive approach to personal and home safety no matter where you live in the state.

To identify the safest cities in South Dakota, we reviewed the most recent FBI Crime Report statistics from 2015, along with population data. We eliminated all cities with fewer than 2,000 residents as well as any cities that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI.

From there, we evaluated the remaining cities. We narrowed it down based on the number of reported violent crimes (aggravated assault, murder, rape, and robbery) and property crimes (burglary, arson, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft) in each city. To further level the playing field, we calculated the likelihood of these crimes occurring out of 1,000 people in each city.