Guess which city has Utah's worst rates per resident for rape, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and car theft. It also has the second-worst rate for violent robberies and third-worst for homicides. In short, it has the highest overall crime rate in the state.

It is not Salt Lake City or West Valley City. They are the state's largest cities and indeed have the highest numbers of crimes — which is why they tend to dominate crime headlines.

But when crime rates per resident are figured — to help compare apples to apples among jurisdictions of different population sizes — the place suffering those worst rates is industrial South Salt Lake, population 22,000.

Some other suburban or rural places that jump up high on some per-resident crime-rate lists that may be surprising include Midvale, Murray, St. George and American Fork.

On the other hand, cities that might be expected on a list of the worst crime rates escape such classification.

For example, Provo — the state's third largest city — has comparatively low crime rates and does not appear on any of the usual "worst" lists. Another urban area has the state's lowest violent crime rate: North Ogden. And another has its lowest property crime rate: Farmington.

The Deseret Morning News computed average annual crime rates for 106 communities based on data the communities reported to the state between 2002 and 2006. Such multiple-year averages make it less likely for one especially bad (or good) year to unduly skew data.

Results show that overall rates on the urban Wasatch Front are 70 percent higher than the rest of the state. And they show where the likelihood per resident of some types of crime is highest or lowest.

Comparing per-resident rates is not without controversy. Places ranking the worst, such as South Salt Lake, often argue that they have much higher "daytime populations" than their official "nighttime" resident population because of visitors working or traveling through their cities. So they say dividing the number of crimes by their smaller nighttime population makes rates seem worse.

Of note, most comparisons made by the Deseret Morning News also are among areas with at least 10,000 residents. That is done because even a single crime in some very small cities can create rates that appear as if a huge crime wave hit there when divided by a tiny population.

And be aware that comparisons are made only at the level of police jurisdiction, or city-to-city, not among areas within them.