Safest California Cities for Trick or Treating

San Francisco (KRON) – Halloween is just around the corner, and parents will soon be putting their little ones into costumes and asking neighbors for sweet treats. But where are the safest places to take your kiddos trick or treating? According to a new study from Chamber of Commerce, three California cities made the top-ten list.

Irvine came in at No. 6 with an overall score of 78. The city fared well when considering pedestrian fatalities, marking only 1.06 fatalities for every 100,000 people. The city had lower law enforcement numbers than some of its counterparts, only recording 115 officers for every 100,000 people.

Coming in strong at No. 9 was the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale. The city also had an overall score of 78, but the number of registered sex offenders in the area pushed it down the list a bit. Glendale has 32 registered sex offenders for every 100,000 people in the city, which is double what that Irvine has.

Though not in the top ten list, a few other California cities earned a mention. Sunnyvale came in strong at No. 20 on the list with an overall safety score of 75. The South Bay city has high law enforcement numbers at 191 per 100,000, but that couldn’t make up for the city’s higher violent crime rate. Sunnyvale reported 121 violent crimes and 75 registered sex offenders for every 100,000 people.

Torrance and Murrieta rounded out the top 25 safest cities to trick or treat list with scores of 74 and 73, respectively.

The safest city to embark on a trick or treating journey, according to Chamber of Commerce, is Gilbert, Arizona, with a total safety score of 82. The city’s low number of pedestrian deaths certainly helped; the city only records one pedestrian fatality per year on average.

The rankings were determined by analyzing over 300 census-defined spaces that each had a population of 100,000 or more. Because the study only considered small cities, it likely missed dozens of very safe small California cities and towns that are safe for pedestrians and have low crime rates.

Each city analyzed was compared using five variables with equal weight: violent crime, pedestrian fatalities, property crime, number of law enforcement employees, and number of registered sex offenders. For more details on methodology, see the study website.

Credit: KGET.com