Treasure Valley Crime

I'm not here to fear monger and luckily I kind of can't. The Treasure Valley is one of the safest places to live in the US. Although, crime still happens here and it's important to understand why and where, so you can make yourself a harder target.

The map attached to this article show's crime per capita in different parts of the valley. Green being very low rates of crime, Red being higher rates. In some spots that you see red, there is hardly anyone that lives there but crime occasionally happens. So don't freak out, it's mostly a goofy outlier. That being said, there are some areas in the Boise Bench, Caldwell, and Nampa that may be a little concerning.

For most of the valley you will see crime focused around commercially dense areas. Essentially capturing property damages and theft to store fronts and businesses. Of course there are the bar and club areas that account for most of our occurrences of assault. The Boise Bench, Caldwell, and Nampa being the only residential areas of some concern.

Overall the Treasure Valley is ranked very well in Assault and Property related crimes, being roughly 30% below the national average in per capita occurrences every year. For drug abuse, identity theft, kidnapping and vandalism, we're actually middle of the pack compared to the national average.

Combining the stats for the Valley your chances of being victim to assault and property crimes is only 1 in 368 each year. This isn't exactly how statistics works but it's kind of like saying, you would have to live here for 368 years to guarantee an experience with assault or property crimes. With a little more likelihood if you live in yellow or red areas and a little less in the green areas.

How do we use this info though? Ultimately, it just boils down to mindfulness. While odds are low, it doesn't hurt to be aware of where crime is most common in the valley and keep an eye out. If you are concerned about or feel more susceptible to other crimes that we don't have the best rating for like identity theft and vandalism, then it may be a good idea to avoid the yellow and red areas.

Being aware is just the first step though. We are hoping to make the Treasure Valley the safest place to live in the nation. As citizens in the valley we should all take a share of the responsibility to make crime less likely. Stick around to see how you can take little steps for a big change.

If you would like to look into this data more yourself, check out the Boise PD's page or CrimeGrade.org.