Maine has the lowest violent crime rate of any U.S. state, at 100 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2024, less than a third of the national average. Among the states with the lowest crime rates overall, the Northeast dominates: Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut all post violent crime rates well below the 359 per 100,000 national figure, while Idaho leads the country on property crime. Only three states appear in the bottom five on both measures.1USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates?
Lowest Violent Crime Rates
Violent crime, as the FBI tracks it, covers murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. The five states with the lowest reported rates in 2024 were:1USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates?
- Maine: 100 per 100,000
- New Hampshire: 110 per 100,000
- Connecticut: 136 per 100,000
- Rhode Island: 154 per 100,000
- Wyoming: 203 per 100,000
Maine leads by a comfortable margin, and New Hampshire is the only other state below 125. Wyoming is the single non-Northeastern state in the group. For context, Alaska reported the highest rate in the country at 724 per 100,000, with New Mexico close behind at 717. A Maine resident encounters roughly one-seventh the reported violent crime risk of someone living in Alaska.
Just outside the top five, New Jersey (218) and Vermont (219) also fall far below the national average.2USAFacts. What Is the Crime Rate in New Jersey?3USAFacts. What Is the Crime Rate in Vermont? The practical difference between a rate of 154 and 219 is small in daily life.
All rates are expressed per 100,000 residents, which puts small states like Wyoming on equal footing with large ones. Raw offense counts would make every populous state look dangerous regardless of actual risk.
Lowest Property Crime Rates
Property crime covers burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The national average in 2024 was 1,760 per 100,000. The five lowest-rate states:1USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates?
- Idaho: 736 per 100,000
- New Hampshire: 918 per 100,000
- Rhode Island: 1,032 per 100,000
- Massachusetts: 1,112 per 100,000
- Maine: 1,142 per 100,000
Idaho sits in a tier by itself, nearly 200 incidents per 100,000 below the next-closest state and less than half the national average. On the opposite end, New Mexico reported 2,751 per 100,000, meaning a resident there faced nearly four times the property crime risk of someone in Idaho.4USAFacts. What Is the Crime Rate in Maine?
One boundary worth noting: these figures capture traditional property offenses only. Online fraud, identity theft, and other digital crimes are tracked separately through programs like the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, so a low property crime ranking does not necessarily mean low cybercrime exposure.
States That Rank Low on Both
Three states appear in the bottom five on both violent and property crime: New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine.1USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates? New Hampshire is the strongest all-around performer, posting the second-lowest violent crime rate (110) and the second-lowest property crime rate (918).
Maine edges out New Hampshire on violent crime but sits slightly higher on property crime. Rhode Island lands in the top five for both without leading either. If you’re weighing a move purely on reported crime data, these three offer the most consistent safety profile across offense types.
Why the Northeast Dominates
Four of the five states with the lowest violent crime rates are in the Northeast, and four of the five with the lowest property crime rates are as well.1USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates? New England, the six-state block of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, accounts for a disproportionate share of the safest states despite holding a small fraction of the national population.
Why that cluster exists is harder to pin down than the numbers themselves. Researchers point to a combination of factors: relatively high median incomes, strong local governance, low population density in northern New England, and long-established community institutions. No single variable explains the pattern. Wyoming and Idaho, the two non-Northeastern states that crack the top five in their categories, share the low-density factor but differ from New England on nearly every other demographic measure. Density plays a role, but it is not the whole answer.
The South and parts of the Mountain West tend to cluster at the opposite end. Louisiana appeared in the top five highest rates for both violent and property crime in 2024, with Arkansas, Tennessee, and New Mexico also reporting elevated figures across both categories.
What the Rankings Miss
Crime rates reflect only offenses reported to and recorded by law enforcement. Criminologists call the gap between reported and actual crime the “dark figure.” Crimes go unreported for many reasons: a victim may not realize a theft occurred, may distrust police, may fear retaliation, or may consider the loss too minor to bother. Sexual assault and domestic violence are among the most severely underreported offenses nationwide.
Participation in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program is voluntary, and not all agencies submit complete data every year. The 2024 dataset had a notable gap for Florida, with only limited data available.1USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates? A state with incomplete reporting can appear safer than it actually is simply because fewer crimes made it into the dataset.
None of this makes the rankings useless. The same states consistently appear at the top and bottom year after year, which suggests the data captures real and durable differences in public safety. But treating any single year’s rate as a precise measurement rather than a useful estimate will lead you astray. Look at multi-year patterns, and read small gaps between neighboring states on the list as statistical noise rather than meaningful distinctions.