How the Safety Index works
The MkaeSense Safety Index scores every US city and Canadian police service covering 25,000 or more people from 0 to 100. A score of 80 means a place ranks safer than 80% of places in its country on reported crime per resident. This page sets out exactly how it is calculated.
Data year 2025Places 1,274 US cities, 125 Canadian police servicesPage updated October 31, 2026
The calculation, step by step
- Rates per resident
For each place, we take the offences reported to police in 2025 and divide by population to get rates per 1,000 residents for four measures: violent crime, break-ins, car theft and theft.
- One property crime rate
Break-ins, car theft and theft are added together into a single property crime rate.
- Rank within the country
For violent crime and for property crime separately, we find the share of other places in the same country with a lower rate. That is each place's percentile. US cities are compared only with US cities, and Canadian police services only with Canadian police services.
- Combine with equal weight
The two percentiles are averaged. Violent crime counts for half of the score and property crime for the other half.
- Turn it into a score
The Safety Index is the share of other places in the country with a higher combined score, as a whole number from 0 to 100. A higher index means a place ranks safer.
Combined score = ½ × violent crime percentile + ½ × property crime percentile
Safety Index = 100 × places with a higher combined score ÷ (places in the country − 1), rounded to a whole number
Each city page also shows a rank, counted from the safest place in the country. Ranks use the unrounded combined score, so two places with the same index can have different ranks.
Worked example: Toronto
Toronto Police Service is one of 125 Canadian police services in the index, so it is compared with 124 others.
11.58 per 1,000 residents. 54 of the other 124 services have a lower rate.
1.78 break-ins + 2.40 car thefts + 18.85 thefts = 23.03 per 1,000. 83 of 124 have a lower rate.
The average of 43.5 and 66.9.
51 of the other 124 services have a higher combined score. 51 ÷ 124 = 41.1%, rounded to 41. Toronto ranks 74th of 125.
Data and coverage
| Country | Source | Places included |
|---|---|---|
| United States | FBI Crime Data Explorer: offences reported by each city's police department, 2025. Theft means larceny-theft. | 1,274 cities with 25,000 or more residents |
| Canada | Statistics Canada, Table 35-10-0180, incident-based crime statistics by police service, 2025. | 125 police services covering 25,000 or more people. Some regional services cover several municipalities, such as York Region or Durham Region. |
The two countries define and count some offences differently, which is why each country is ranked on its own. A score of 50 in the United States and a score of 50 in Canada both mean “in the middle of its own country”, not the same level of crime.
Missing data
32 Florida cities have no car theft figures in the 2025 FBI data. Their pages show car theft as “not reported”. For the index, their property crime is ranked on break-ins and theft only, against the same measure for every other US city, so the missing figure is neither counted as zero nor guessed.
Checking our numbers
Every rate and score is published in the City Safety Rankings table and on each city page, so anyone can reproduce the index. The rates we display are rounded to two decimal places. Recalculating the index from those rounded rates gives the published score for most places and is within 2 points for every place.
What the index does not tell you
- Only reported crime counts. Many crimes, especially break-ins and thefts, are never reported to police.
- It is per resident. Downtowns and tourist towns draw many visitors who are not counted as residents, which pushes their rates up.
- It is a citywide figure. Risk can vary a great deal between neighbourhoods in the same city.
- It is a ranking, not a risk level. The index shows where a place sits against others in its country, not the chance of a crime at any address.
- One year can move a lot. Smaller places can shift noticeably from one year to the next.
The Safety Index and all rates are MkaeSense calculations from public data. MkaeSense is not affiliated with the FBI or Statistics Canada, and this is general information, not a prediction for any home or street.