You are interested in finding out which are the safest states in America that have death penalty? Of course you are, it’s good to know how your state ranks when it comes to safety. So, how can rankings about the safety of states be created? What is implied by the term “safe state“? No murder? No rapes, no physical assaults? No hate speech? No robberies? All of it, and even more. Every crime, every act against the law has its own weight. But then again, not every one of them weighs the same, and that’s why this kind of ranking can never be final. Also, statistic data is only one part of the picture, but remember that there are always some crimes that never get reported. No matter how much we try we can never see every (tear)drop in the ocean. That’s why FBI argues against rankings in general – we are issuing this out so you can know that our list of 10 safest states in America that have death penalty is not “FBI kind of relevant”. We have only chosen what we felt that is the appropriate method of ranking a state’s safety. Now, we have come to the essence of our list – the method that we have used to create a list of 10 safest states in America that have death penalty is combining data about murder and rape crimes. We feel that these two types of crimes are the ones that severely outweigh the others. Robbery and other theft crimes are also important, but not as much as life, or physical and psychological health. Also, we’ve chosen this method because the death penalty is used almost exclusively for murder crimes, and there were only a few cases allowing death penalty for offences other than murder (find out more at the Death Penalty Center).
Before we proceed with our list of 10 safest states in America that have the death penalty, we will provide you with information about safest non-death penalty states, just to have an idea about the difference between them. One interesting observation is that 3 out of 5 safest states that don’t have the death penalty are also in our list of 10 smartest states in America, whereas there’s only 1 out of 10 safest states that have the death penalty there. Bearing in mind that the list of 10 smartest states was created by ranking percentage of people with a bachelor’s degree or higher, we can conclude that there is a connection between the death penalty and the level of education in the state. For more information about the death penalty and its connection to crimes, check out our two lists – 10 states with highest murder rates despite death penalty and 10 states with lowest murder rates and no death penalty. So, five safest non-death penalty states in America are:
5. Wisconsin – Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 24,3
(from which: murder rate is 3 and rape rate is 21,3)
4. Hawaii – Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 22,6
(from which: murder rate is 2,1 and rape rate is 20,5)
3. Vermont – Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 20,6
(from which murder rate is 1,3 and rape rate is 19,3)
2. New York – Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 18,1
(from which: murder rate is 3,5 and rape rate is 14,6 )
1. New Jersey – Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 16,1
(from which: murder rate is 4,4 and rape rate is 11,7)
To create our list, we have used data from Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics in 2012. And, finally – our list of 10 safest states in America that have death penalty:
10. Florida
Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 32,4
(from which murder rate is 5,2 and rape rate is 27,2)
Florida is also in 2nd place on our list of 10 states that use death penalty the most.
9. Idaho
Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 31,8
(from which murder rate is 1,8 and rape rate is 30)
8. Missouri
Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 31,6
(from which murder rate is 6,5 and rape rate is 25,1)
Missouri is also in the 5th place on our list of states that uses death penalty the most and in the 5th place on our list of states that have highest murder rates despite death penalty.
7. Oregon
Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 31,6
(from which murder rate is 2,4 and rape rate is 29,2)
6. Indiana
Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 30,2
(from which murder rate is 4,7 and rape rate is 25,5)
It is also in the 8 place of our list of 10 dumbest states in America, where we measured the percentage of people with a bachelor’s degree or higher, which is for Indiana 22,5%.
5. Wyoming
Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 29,1
(from which murder rate is 2,4 and rape rate is 26,7)
4. Georgia
Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 27,3
(from which murder rate is 5,9 and rape rate is 21,4)
Georgia is also in 9th place on our list of states that uses the death penalty the most and in 7th place on our list of states that have highest murder rates despite death penalty.
3. California
Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 25,6
(from which murder rate is 5 and rape rate is 20,6)
2. North Carolina
Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 25,2
(from which murder rate is 4,9 and rape rate is 20,3)
And the safest state in America that has death penalty is Virginia
Number of murder and rape rate per 100,000 people is: 21,5
(from which murder rate is 3,8 and rape rate is 17,7)
Besides being the safest state in America that has death penalty,Virginia is also in 10th place on our list of states that uses death penalty the most. Also don’t forget to check out our article about the 10 most beautiful states in the US.
