Retaining it's title to the throne as a citadel of safety, Newton, MA repeated this year, crowned as the nation's safest city overall.

The "capital" of Silicon Valley, San Jose, CA was named the safest big city for the fourth year in a row; Amherst, NY was tops for mid-sized city safety; murder-free for two years now, Newton also nabbed the top safe small town award, and Logan, UT-ID won the award for the safest metropolitan area in the nation, in Morgan Quitno Press's 12th annual "America's Safest (and Most Dangerous) Cities" award.

"With no murders, as well as the lowest overall crime and motor vehicle theft rates, it ranks as the clear winner in this year's survey," said Scott Morgan, President of Morgan Quitno Press.

Overall, following Newton, cities at the top of the heap were Clarkstown, NY; Amherst, NY; Mission Viejo, CA and Brick Township, NJ.

Each year, for the past 12 years, to determine cities' level of safety, Morgan Quitno examines U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations' (FBI) statistics for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft and measures how a particular city or metro area stacks up against the national average.

The findings for 369 cities are sorted overall and by three population sizes. Findings for 330 metropolitan area are sorted overall. Both cities and metro areas are also listed alphabetically with their safety score.

New this year, state-by-state tables allow you to compare scores and rankings for the cities in each state. 

Where there's a list of safe cities, there's also a list of not-so-safe cities.

Camden, NJ, also for the second year in a row, ranked as the nation's most dangerous town. After Camden, Detroit, MI; St. Louis, MO, Flint, MI and Richmond, VA rounded out the five towns deemed most dangerous overall.

With the highest violent crime, murder and robbery rates among cities of 75,000 or more population Camden was also the most dangerous town in that population-size category. For large cities with a population of 500,000 or more, Detroit, MI had the worst crime record. For mid-sized cities, St. Louis, MO was deemed most dangerous. The Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, MI metro area had the highest crime rate among metro areas.

"The city and state have taken some important steps to fix its crime problems. Although Camden's violent crime rate has increased 15 percent over the past five years, the rate actually declined nearly 6 percent from 2003 to 2004," said Morgan.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations and other law enforcement agencies have criticized the annual rankings as "simplistic" or "incomplete" but Morgan Quitno says it stands by its results because they are derived from sound and fair methodology and cities aren't compared against each other, but against a national average.

More information and the full "12 Annual America's Safest (and Most Dangerous) Cities" report is available for a very limited time for only $1.99 online.

Published: November 25, 2005

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A journalist for 35-years, Broderick Perkins parlayed an old-school daily newspaper career into a digital news service offering editorial content and consulting services. Perkins' San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews Group includes the flagship news site, DeadlineNews.Com, offering real estate, personal finance and consumer journalism, and a backshop, the Deadline Newsroom.