West Richland named one of the safest cities in Washington (again!)

April 2, 2023

West Richland has been named one of the safest cities in the entire state of Washington. And this is hardly a new accolade. If our records are correct, it’s the fourth time since 2019 that West Richland has made a “safe cities” list!

The latest accolade is from SafeWise’s 9th annual Safest Cities report. SafeWise relies on FBI data for both violent and property crimes and compares those numbers to city populations to rank cities based on the number of reported crimes per 1,000 people.

West Richland ranked #8 in this new report and is the only city on the east side of the state to crack the top 10. Only two others made the top 20 (East Wenatchee and Liberty Lake).

Safewise says West Richland’s violent crime rate has hovered between 1.0 and 1.2% the past three years, which is about one-third the state rate of 3.4%. For property crimes, West Richland has ranged between 6.7 and 13.3% the past three years, which is less than half of the state rate (31.3%).

In past years, SafeWise published a complete list of all Washington cities, which let us see where the rest of the Tri-Cities ranked. This year, they seem to only have published the top 20 cities, so we have no idea where Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland would rank. A few years ago, those three cities all ranked between 30-35 statewide in a similar SafeWise study.

If you’re moving to the Tri-Cities…

If you’re thinking about moving to the Tri-Cities, I always recommend you use the non-emergency phone number to contact the local police department, let them know what street/neighborhood you’re looking at, and ask them for detailed information about the types of calls they get in that area.

And if you want to learn more about this area, don’t miss my video below!