An article in Friday’s issue of The Daily Eastern News reported Eastern was named one of the safest cities in Il­linois by an online source.

The Charleston community should not assume this report means doors do not need locking, and safety pre­cautions do not need to be taken.

ValuePenguin.com and SafeWise Report listed Charleston as the second safest city to live in with a pop­ulation of 15,000 to 13,000 people, and 16th in a study of 298 cities overall.

SafeWise achieved its results by analyzing the num­ber of violent and property crimes reported to them by an FBI crime report and calculated the chance of each crime taking place.

University Police Chief Adam Due suggested Charleston’s safety might have to do with its rural loca­tion.

The city’s low crime rate in regard to violent and property crimes is an accomplishment to be proud of, surely. It is important, however, to not let a study that analyzed two very specific categories of crime, dominate our understanding of Charleston’s well being.

In 2013, the Coles County Sheriff Department re­ported seizing a total of $242,673 in a street-value-worth of drugs.

The county had to cut corrections training time largely because of employee turnover, which reduced the number of mandatory training hours for personnel.

As a result, total activity for patrol went down and crime went up.

Another issue that arises with this report is the sub­jectivity of the word safe. In this case, the reporters based their results on physically violent and property crimes.

An estimated 22 percent – more than 1 in 5 – of the Coles County population is considered officially poor and earns an annual income below the federal thresh­old of $11,490 for an individual, according to the Coles County Poverty Data Project.

Charleston is also an interesting city in the context of this study, since a considerable amount of its population is derived from the university.

Across the county, crime rates in particular categories fluctuate between the summer and academic school year, according to the 2013 Coles County Annual Report.

While the city should certainly pride itself in being named one of the safest mid-sized cities in Illinois, oth­er considerations regarding residents’ safety should not be brushed off.

The daily editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Daily Eastern News.