Camas ranked sixth in an annual list of Washington’s 20 safest cities put together by Safewise.com, a home safety and security website.
The city, with a population of roughly 22,400, has a rate of 0.67 reported violent crimes per 1,000 residents. The list says violent crimes make up 4.85 percent of all crime in Camas.
“Among the 20 safest cities in the Evergreen State, violent crime is even more uncommon, with all but three of these cities reporting fewer than one violent crime for every 1,000 people,” Safewise said of the rankings.
Snoqualmie, with a population of 13,713; Mercer Island, with a population of 25,527; and Sammamish, with a population of 53,387 took the first, second and third spots on the list, respectively.
Camas was the only Clark County city to make the list.
Safewise.com says that to make the list, it reviewed the FBI’s 2016 annual data release, called the Crime in the United States report.
The website’s evaluation was based on the number of reported violent crimes — which includes aggravated assault, murder, rape and robbery — in each city. If there was a tie, it also factored in the number of property crimes.
“To level the playing field, we calculated the rate of crimes per 1,000 people in each city. This makes it easier to directly compare the likelihood of these crimes occurring in cities with vastly different populations,” according to Safewise.com.
The website noted that property crime wasn’t much of a concern among the state’s 20 safest cities, because many of them reported an average rate of less than half the state’s average.
But according to the FBI’s 2017 data, Camas’ rate of reported property crimes grew 12 percent. The higher rate came at the end of a 10-year decline, however.
Overall, violent crime rates generally dropped from 2016 to 2017 in Clark County, keeping with national trends.
