Wyoming Crime Rates: Summary of Facts About the Cowboy State
Wyoming is reportedly a very safe state with minimal crimes due to its rural setting / low population density. But, how does that translate to the rates and trends of crime when it comes to the Cowboy State? Below is a significant analysis of crime in Wyoming based on data and statistics.
Overall Crime Rate
The overall crime rate per 100,000 people in Wyoming ranks 11th lowest in the entire USA based on the FBI‘s 2020 Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) statistics of 1,914. The average national crime rate was just below 2700 per 100000 people. The crime rate in Wyoming has not changed dramatically over the last ten years, with varying figures within the population range of 1,800-2,100/100,000 from 2010 to 2020.
Violent Crime
Overall, out of the total violent crimes, which include homicides, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, Wyoming ranks among the lowest states. In 2020, the violent crime rate was 212 cases per 100,000 residents in the state, which is 60.1% less compared to the nationwide figure of 398 cases per 100,000 people. The violent crime rate per 100,000 residents in Wyoming reached its climax in 2012 at 237 and decreased to almost 200 in recent years.
The last violent crime on the list is that in Wyoming, and the most common of them is aggravated assault, which occurs in more than 70% of the cases. Robbery and rape are considerably lesser in the low-population state whereas, homicide is extremely low in the state. The situation in the state is better still, with 13 murders recorded in 2020, giving a rate of 2.3 per 100,000 people as compared to around 7 per 100,000 people in the United States. For a decade, the reports on murder cases in Wyoming indicated that the rate was 12-15 murders annually.
Property Crime
According to the survey, a property crime consisting of burglary, larceny, and vehicle theft is more frequent than violent crimes by 9.8%. The property crime rate in Wyoming was 1,702 incidents per 100,000 residents in the same year. This has reduced the overall ranking of the state to 23rd position, which is however still much lower than the national average of 2,301 per 100000. Similar to the violent crime rate, the property crime rate in Wyoming also reached its highest in 2012-2013 but was relatively low from the early 2010s to the late 2010s.
Larceny is the most common type of property crime, constituting over 70% of all criminal incidents. Property crimes, particularly burglary and carjacking, occur less frequently but are still prevalent in most Wyoming communities. This is because, in rural farming regions, there are cases of theft of livestock and farming implements. Nonetheless, crime in Wyoming is considerably less frequent in rural areas of the state as compared to densely populated regions.
Crime in Wyoming Cities
In the current dispensation, Cheyenne and Casper which are the most populated city in the state have a higher crime index than the other small towns in Wyoming. Nevertheless, the crime rates per capita in major cities in the US are still much lower than elsewhere in other large cities in the United States.
For 2020, Cheyenne had a total of 5,800 crimes per 100,000 inhabitants while Casper had slightly higher with 7,100 per 100,000 populace. It is important to note that both cities have comparably low, albeit more accurate, crime rates of less than 65,000 people. To illustrate this, most similar mid-size cities in the United States of America are known to experience a total crime rate of over 10,000 for every 100000 residents. Homicidal acts in particular are relatively rare in Cheyenne as well as in Casper; however, property crimes are the most frequent.
Rural areas feature the lowest crime rates where towns and communities act as the safest zones, especially in Jackson Hole and Sheridan County. Nevertheless, there are not enough local police in Wyoming and the response time of the emergency services can be very long, these problems remain topical in the countryside.
Incarceration and Law Enforcement
Currently, there are 668 prisoners per 100,000 state residents in Wyoming, a figure that makes this state one of the leaders in the United States in terms of incarceration rates viewed in 2020. However, the state penitentiary population trend has been decreasing in the last decade in compliance with the decreased nationwide crime rate. Rural demographic trends coupled with constraining policies that credit the criminal justice system to amplify imprisonment rates, even though a few offenders exist as a proportion of the whole population.
In so far policing, Wyoming had 16 full-time law enforcement employees for every 10000 residents in the year 2016. This is far below the average of per capita police officers in the United States which is estimated at 24 per 10,000 people, which can be attributed to Wyoming’s narrow tax revenue and low population density. Nonetheless, the public’s perception of local Police is positive, with 72% of residents trusting them based on a survey conducted in 2018.
Future Outlook
Wyoming is expected to experience low crimes in the future due to minimal large cities with high emissions of offenses. However, problems such as drug and alcohol consumption – especially methamphetamine – and domestic violence can partly contribute to some rise in nonviolent offenses. Subsequent issues include how the state of Wyoming can effectively combat these modern-day crimes such as cyber-crimes and fraud using a low-resource rural police force in the foreseeable future. All in all, the Equality State still ranks as one of the safest places to live in the country.
