Portales named safe city

A recent analysis of FBI crime statistics listed Portales as the sixth safest city in the state of New Mexico, with a violent crime rate less than half the national average.

In 2017, the year from which the reports were compiled, Portales had a violent crime rate of 2.01 incidents per thousand people, with a population then of 11,928. Nationwide the rate for violent crimes of aggravated assault, murder, rape and robbery is 4.49 per thousand, and statewide that rate is 9.57.

Those figures were detailed in the annual report from a security consulting group SafeWise, which ranked New Mexico “first in the nation for burglary and robbery.”

Property crime, identified as burglary, arson, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft, registered in Portales at a rate of 37.06 incidents per 1,000 compared to a nationwide rate of 27.11 and a statewide rate of 52.84.

The top five safest cities, according to the report’s metrics, were Corrales, Raton, Los Alamos, Rio Rancho and Edgewood. No other area cities were in the report’s top 20.

Raton, with the second-lowest violent crime rate of 1.34, had the highest property crime rate of any in the top 12, averaging 39.11 incidents in 1,000. Taos more than doubled the property crime rate of any other city in the top 20, with 88.89 incidents per 1,000 people and a population of 5,771.