Crime & Safety in Salem
Salem's crime profile carries a genuinely mixed, disclosed nuance worth stating precisely: per NeighborhoodScout, Salem's overall crime rate (33 per 1,000) runs somewhat below Eugene's, but Salem's violent-crime-specific victim odds (1 in 184) run genuinely WORSE than Eugene's (1 in 308) -- a real, category-specific contrast this record does not smooth into a single misleading verdict.
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Learn moreA Genuinely Mixed, Disclosed Crime Profile -- Better Overall, Worse on Violent Crime Specifically
Per NeighborhoodScout, Salem's overall crime rate runs 33 per 1,000 residents -- somewhat below Eugene's cited 36 per 1,000, placing Salem above more than 93% of Oregon communities (compared to Eugene's 96th-percentile figure). But broken down by category, Salem's violent-crime-specific victim odds run genuinely WORSE than Eugene's: roughly 1 in 184 for Salem versus roughly 1 in 308 for Eugene. This record states this category-level nuance precisely rather than reducing it to a single 'safer' or 'less safe' headline.
Property Crime Runs Somewhat More Favorable in Salem
Salem's property crime victim odds run roughly 1 in 36 (28 per 1,000) -- somewhat more favorable than Eugene's cited 1 in 31 (33 per 1,000). Combined with the violent-crime nuance above, this means Salem's and Eugene's crime profiles genuinely diverge by CATEGORY rather than one city simply being uniformly safer or less safe than the other.
Regional Context
This record does not have a directly comparable Oregon statewide per-100,000 violent/property crime figure independently confirmed this pass to set alongside Salem's NeighborhoodScout index figures -- disclosed as a research gap. What is confirmed: Salem's crime rate runs above more than 93% of Oregon's OWN communities specifically, a real, disclosed elevated position even relative to Oregon's own distribution, though somewhat less extreme than Eugene's disclosed 96th-percentile figure.
Data Recency
This record's NeighborhoodScout crime data for Salem carries a specific cited 'as of' date (March 31, 2026), a real, disclosed data-recency marker worth noting alongside the figures themselves.
A Single-Source Figure, Disclosed as a Modest Confidence Caveat
This record sources its crime figures from a single secondary aggregator (NeighborhoodScout) rather than independently re-verifying against a primary Salem Police Department or FBI Uniform Crime Report dataset this pass -- disclosed as a real, modest confidence caveat, alongside the genuinely mixed, category-specific picture disclosed above.
Key takeaways
- Salem's overall NeighborhoodScout crime rate (33 per 1,000) runs somewhat below Eugene's (36 per 1,000), but Salem's violent-crime-specific victim odds (1 in 184) run genuinely worse than Eugene's (1 in 308) -- a real, category-specific nuance.
- Salem's property crime victim odds (1 in 36, 28 per 1,000) run somewhat more favorable than Eugene's (1 in 31, 33 per 1,000).
- Salem's crime rate runs above more than 93% of Oregon's own communities specifically -- a real, disclosed elevated position, though somewhat less extreme than Eugene's 96th-percentile figure.
- This record's Salem crime data carries a specific cited 'as of' date (March 31, 2026), disclosed as a real recency marker.
- These figures come from a single secondary aggregator (NeighborhoodScout) rather than an independently re-verified primary dataset this pass -- disclosed as a modest confidence caveat.
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