Yeah, you read that correctly.

If you're looking to live in a place that's considered "safe", Colorado might not be the place for you.

A recent study conducted by researchers with customer review and consumer news platform, ConsumerAffairs looked to uncover the safest states in the country.

The bad news if you're living in Colorado? The Centennial State's not one of them.

Why Was The Study Conducted?

Recent polls via Axios and The Economist show that for every 10 Americans, about 9 of them feel very - or at least, somewhat safe in the communities they're living in.

On the latter, however, Gallup polls demonstrate the gap in perception of growing crime in the U.S. versus crime in one’s own neighborhood has never been wider, according to ConsumerAffairs.

As such, researchers looked to recently released data from the FBI and the U.S. Census Bureau to score each state in the country based on the following factors:

  • violent and property crime rates
  • the number of law enforcement officers per capita
  • law enforcement budgets

How Was The Study Conducted?

In order to determine each state's ranking, all 50 states in the U.S were ranked for safety based on:

  • the amount of violent crime in each state (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault)
  • property crime rates in each state (burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson)
  • estimated budget per law enforcement employee, per state
  • the number of law enforcement officers per capita, per state

Each factor was scored in correlation with the national average (of each factor) and assigned a score from 0 to 20, with a score of 10 if the factor was equal to the national average, 0 if it was 100% worse and 20 if it was 100% better. The violent crime score was given twice as much weight as other factors. All four scores were then added together for a comprehensive score.

So, How Safe Is Colorado?

According to the study, Colorado was ranked as the 39th safest state in the country - or the 11th most dangerous.

To put the study's findings into perspective, the safest state in the country - New Jersey - earned its ranking due to its score in the law enforcement officers per capita category, which is over 100% greater than the national average; in 2020 the state had 38,628 total law enforcement officers or approximately one for every 230 people.

Overall, New Jersey received a comprehensive score of 71.6 - considering all mentioned factors - while Colorado received a comprehensive score of 44.

The only states less safe than Colorado, as per the study are:

  • 40. Texas - Overall Score: 43.1
  • 41. Montana - Overall Score: 42.8
  • 42. Arizona - Overall Score: 41.8
  • 43. Missouri - Overall Score: 41.6
  • 44. Oklahoma - Overall Score: 40.7
  • 45. South Dakota - Overall Score: 40.6
  • 46. South Carolina - Overall Score: 37.6
  • 47. Tennessee - Overall Score: 32.3
  • 48. Alaska - Overall Score: 30.4
  • 49. Arkansas - Overall Score: 29.3 (the least safe state in the U.S.) 

**New Mexico was excluded from state rankings because of a lack of data. Washington, D.C., was not included in the state rankings.**

To view the full study conducted by ConsumerAffairs regarding the safest states in the country, click here. 

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