Maine has the lowest crime rate of any state in the US, with roughly 1,242 total incidents per 100,000 residents in 2024 reporting data. It also posts the lowest violent crime rate in the country and ranks among the five lowest for property crime, a double distinction no other state matches.1USAFacts. What Is the Crime Rate in Maine?
Why Maine Sits at the Bottom
Maine recorded just 100.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 2024, lower than any other state. Its property crime rate of 1,142.1 per 100,000 also lands in the national bottom five. Combined, the two figures put the state well below where the rest of the country sits.2USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates?
Maine’s Department of Public Safety counted 42,559 total crimes statewide in 2024, a rate of 28.83 per 1,000 residents. The agency describes the state as having “a long-standing reputation of hard work and collaboration that has traditionally made Maine one of the safest states in the country.”3Maine Department of Public Safety. Crime in Maine 2024
The ranking isn’t a one-year fluke. Maine has held its position near the bottom of the national crime tables for years, which matters more than any single year’s number. A statistical snapshot can swing; a decade-long pattern is harder to dismiss.
The Five States With the Lowest Violent Crime
Violent crime covers homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, and rape. The five lowest state rates per 100,000 residents in 2024 were:2USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates?
- Maine: 100.1
- New Hampshire: 110.1
- Connecticut: 136.0
- Rhode Island: 153.6
- Wyoming: 203.4
Four of those are in New England. Wyoming is the outlier, a sparsely populated Western state with a very different demographic profile from the Northeast cluster. All five sit well below the national average, and violent crime nationally dropped an estimated 4.5% in 2024 compared to 2023.4Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI Releases 2024 Reported Crimes in the Nation Statistics
The Five States With the Lowest Property Crime
Property crime covers burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. The ranking here looks different. The five lowest per 100,000 residents in 2024:2USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates?
- Idaho: 736.3
- New Hampshire: 918.0
- Rhode Island: 1,032.4
- Massachusetts: 1,112.1
- Maine: 1,142.1
Idaho leads this category by a wide margin. Its property crime rate is roughly 58% below the national average of 1,760.1 per 100,000. Every state on the list runs at least 35% below that national benchmark. If your concern is specifically theft or burglary rather than violent offenses, Idaho outperforms Maine.
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine appear on both the violent and property crime bottom-five lists. That overlap is what makes those three unusually safe across the board, not just in one category.
Why New England Dominates Safety Rankings
The Northeast region’s violent crime rate is 22.1% below the national average, and its property crime rate is 16.9% below. In 2024, four of the five lowest violent crime states and four of the five lowest property crime states sat in the Northeast.2USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates?
A second cluster of low-crime states shows up in the Mountain West and northern Great Plains. Idaho and Wyoming are the clearest examples, though they tend to rank well in one category rather than both. The FBI points to more than a dozen factors that shape state crime rates, including population density, age distribution, local economy, law enforcement staffing, and criminal justice policies. No single variable explains the pattern, and the FBI explicitly cautions against using its data to rank places without understanding local context.2USAFacts. Which States Have the Highest and Lowest Crime Rates?
At the opposite end of the spectrum, New Mexico (3,637 per 100,000), Colorado (3,353), Washington (3,244), and Louisiana (3,178) post the highest state crime rates. Western states hold four of the five highest property crime rates and the two highest violent crime rates nationally.
What the Rankings Don’t Capture
Low crime data is useful, but it comes with real limits.
Reporting is voluntary and uneven. In 2021, the first year the FBI relied solely on the National Incident-Based Reporting System, roughly 40% of the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies failed to submit data. By 2023 participation had climbed to about 89%, but gaps still exist. A state whose agencies underreport can look safer on paper than it is.
The numbers also only count crimes reported to police. Sexual assault, domestic violence, and low-value theft routinely go unreported. A state where victims feel more comfortable coming forward can look worse in the data than a state where crime stays hidden.
And a crime rate is a snapshot. Maine’s position has been stable for years, which gives it more weight than a single-year ranking would, but no state’s standing is locked in.
The Cost of Living Tradeoff
Safety in these states often comes with higher expenses. Using a 2025 cost-of-living index where 100 is the national average, Maine and Connecticut both sit at 114.0, Vermont at 113.5, and New Hampshire at 110.5. Housing is the main driver: Maine’s housing index runs 135.7 and Vermont’s 129.0.
Idaho and Wyoming, the two low-crime states outside the Northeast, tend to run cheaper than New England, though Idaho’s housing costs have climbed sharply. New Hampshire offsets some of its cost-of-living gap through having no state income tax and no state sales tax.
Low crime also carries financial upside that doesn’t show up in a cost-of-living index. Insurance companies price homeowners’ premiums partly on local crime data, and property values hold up better where theft and break-ins are uncommon. If you’re weighing a move based on safety, the full picture includes both what you pay to live there and what low crime saves you.