Vernon Hills Among Top 25 Safest Illinois Towns

VERNON HILLS, IL — The website Safewise recently released its rankings of the 50 safest cities in Illinois, topped by the village of Campton Hills in Kane County, and several in the top 25, including Vernon Hills.

Vernon Hills was ranked the twenty-fourth safest town in the state, with a violent crimes rate of just 0.38 per 1,000 people out of a population of 26,547, and a property crime rate of 17.67 per 1,000.

Huntley (No. 5), Buffalo Grove (No. 6) Hawthorn Woods (No. 7) and Deerfield (No. 8) also cracked the top 10 on the 2019 list.

Lake Zurich (19), Oak Brook (22), and Park Ridge (25) made the top 25.

Illinois itself has a violent crime rate of 5.28 per 1,000 people, compared to a national average of 4.49, according to Safewise. The state has below average rates of property crime, with 22.81 per 1,000 and a national rate of 27.11.

According to the survey of Illinois residents the website used to develop its rankings, digital security was the top worry for Illinois residents followed by a tie between violent crime or property crime.

The top violent crime concern is being robbed on the street, a concern for 52 percent of people nationally and 63 percent in Illinois, the survey found. As for property crime, the biggest worry was having valuables stolen, with 66 percent reporting it as a concern compared to 53 percent nationwide.

The safest community in Illinois was listed as Campton Hills, a village with a population of about 11,300 that reported a violent crime rate of 0 per 1,000 and a property crime rate of 1.59 per 1,000, according to data submitted to the FBI.

Of the 50 safest cities in the state, 90 percent reported zero murders but only 26 percent reported no murder or sexual assaults, the website said.

According to the rankings, the top 25 safest cities in Illinois are:

1. Campton Hills
2. Gilberts
3. Wilmette
4. Homer Glen
5. Huntley
6. Buffalo Grove
7. Hawthorn Woods
8. Deerfield
9. Plano
10. Lockport
11. Taylorville
12. Roscoe
13. Lemont
14. Winthrop Harbor
15. Northbrook
16. Glencoe
17. Hinsdale
18. Lisle
19. Lake Zurich
20. Mahomet
21. Frankfort
22. Oak Brook
23. West Frankfort
24. Vernon Hills
25. Park Ridge

According to Safewise, it uses the most recent available FBI crime data for its reports, so it based its 2019 rankings on 2017 FBI uniform crime reporting statistics and eliminated cities below a state's median population size to identity the "safest cities of 2019."

Last year, it said, Illinois was excluded from the fourth edition of the annual rankings due to incomplete crime reporting submitted to the FBI.

Read the full Safest Cities in Illinois ranking or find out more about the report's methodology.