Report: Plum Ranked Sixth Safest City in U.S.

Plum Borough residents are living in one of the safest places in America, according to a study.

NeighborhoodScout has released a list of the Top 100 Safest Cities in the U.S., and Plum has ranked No. 6 and is considered safer than 79 percent of the cities in the nation.

Compared to communities within Pennsylvania, Plum's crime rate is lower than nearly 61 percent of the state's cities and towns, according to the report.

Cities in America with 25,000 or more people were included in the ranking system. A city's rank was based on the total number of property and violent crimes per 1,000 residents. Crimes include burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, murder, forcible rape, armed robbery and aggravated assault.

According to NeighborhoodScout, data used for this research are the number of total crimes reported to the FBI to have occurred in each city and the population of each city.

The study split the borough into six neighborhoods, ranking them in the following order (safest first):

1. Unity/New Texas
2. Renton
3. Saltsburg Road/New Texas Road
4. Borough Center
5. Holiday Park
6. Regency Park

NeighborhoodScout is a branch of Location Inc., is a builder and source of location-based data and risk analysis information for corporate users nationwide.

Plum Mayor Rich Hrivnak congratulated the police department.

"They do such a fine job," he said. "We've really come a long way in terms of our police department."

Plum police Chief Frank Monaco credited borough officers for their hard work.

"They do a good job," he said. "It's all them."

Borough officials also were ecstatic to hear the news.

"I can't wait to brag about that," Councilman Keith Nowalk said with a smile.

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