Prime for crime?

Snyder noted South Salt Lake also has a lot of people compacted into a very small area. It has many low-income housing and rental units. Because of that, he said it is sometimes hard to start neighborhood- and business-watch programs with community members who are always moving. The city also has a large industrial area, with some businesses operating 24/7.

"A lot of people spend a considerable amount of time here but may not live here," Snyder said.

The city police department has a total of 58 sworn officers to keep track of those 70,000 people during the day. When broken down into shifts and positions, there are just 24 officers on the street, Tingey said.

On the positive side, Snyder points to how the crime rate for the city has dropped each year since peaking in 2004.

"We look at what we did the year previously. We don't compare our crime rate to other cities," he said. "We look at what has been done to improve our own city," and, Snyder said, it is improving

No. 2 in crime

Salt Lake City, which ranked second in the average crime rate for both violent and property crimes, is another place where the police department knows all about an extremely large daytime population.

"Due to us being the capital of Utah, people come downtown to work, shop, sporting events, cultural events ... our service population is drastically different than our residential population," said Salt Lake City police detective Jeff Bedard.

Salt Lake City's current population is about 181,000. But a 2005 U.S. Census report estimated Salt Lake City's daytime population at 313,000 people. In cities of at least 100,000 people, only Irvine, Calif., sees a greater proportion of daytime swell in its population than Salt Lake City.

The Salt Lake City Police Department has a little more than 400 staff members.

Although Salt Lake City ranks high in its crimes per resident, violent crime in the city was down 3.6 percent over the past 10 years, Bedard said.

Low crime rates

The extreme opposite of South Salt Lake is tiny Leeds, population 613, between Cedar City and St. George. It has almost no crime.

In fact, between 2003 and 2005, it reported only a single crime to the state, a larceny, among the eight categories of crime tracked nationally by the FBI. So, among all law enforcement agencies, it had the lowest crime rates.

"I'm shocked," Leeds Police Chief Dave Krouse said upon hearing the statistics. "I'm blown away with one crime statistic."