US Counties With the Lowest Safety Scores

2,086 US counties ranked by safety score, from lowest to highest. First are Big Horn County, MT (-5.15), Phillips County, AR (-4.96) and Todd County, SD (-4.82). The middle one of the 2,086 has -0.186.

What this measures

Deaths from violence and injury (guns, crashes and overdoses), flipped so higher is safer. Homicide, suicide, drunk-driving and total injury deaths are left out, since they would count the same deaths twice. Gun deaths already include most homicides and suicides, and injury deaths include all four. Source: .

A standard deviation is a typical gap between places.

For most measures, a national ranking mostly sorts places by income and by how urban they are. Each county’s own page compares it with the 50 counties most like it instead, which is often the fairer view.

The 100 lowest counties

Every state, lowest first

Each state’s own published figure, not an average of its counties.

More on safety score

• US Counties With the Highest Safety Scores
• Safety score by US county: map by year and what it goes with

A ranking describes places, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All US rankings.