Massachusetts

These Are the Safest Communities in Massachusetts, New Study Finds

What to Know

  • BackgroundChecks.org conducted a study on New York State's safest communities
  • Safety indexes were measured based on violent crime rate, property crime rate, and law enforcement staffing
  • East Hampton was named the safest city in NY, with four Long Island communities registering in the top five

Safety is a top priority for Weston, as the town was named Massachusetts’ safest community, according to BackgroundChecks.org.

The annual report releases the safest cities in the U.S. and broke down the rankings based on a safety index that combines FBI crime statistics and law enforcement employee to resident ratios to create a score and measure the overall safety of a specific community. Ninety-eight Massachusetts communities received a score of 0.3 or higher, which indicates a very high safety level.

Weston notched the state's highest score at 0.91 due to its low property crime rate of 3.02 per 1,000, which is lower than the national violent crime rate.

Coming in at second on the list is Clinton, which holds a score of 0.9. The community of nearly 14,000 achieved a similarly low violent crime rate and an even lower property crime rate of 2.46 per 1,000.

Wayland was third with a score of 0.87 and a violent crime rate of just 1.43 per 1,000 residents.

Norwell and Bedford were fourth and fifth, respectively, with safety index scores of 0.86 and 0.81.

A total of 2,929 communities were audited in BackgroundCheck.org’s report, including 163 in Massachusetts. The report automatically filters out any community with a population under 10,000, and all crime rates were determined on a per-capita basis.

Click here for the full list of 2019's safest Massachusetts communities.

Here's a quick look at the safest communities in the other New England states. Vermont was not included in the study.

New Hampshire

  1. Portsmouth
  2. Londonderry
  3. Hanover
  4. Hudson
  5. Merrimack

Maine:

  1. Wells
  2. Scarborough
  3. York
  4. Falmouth
  5. Kennebunk

Rhode Island:

  1. Narragansett
  2. East Greenwich
  3. Scituate
  4. Smithfield
  5. South Kingstown/Glocester (tie)

Connecticut:

  1. Orange
  2. Greenwich
  3. New Canaan
  4. Monroe
  5. Brookfield
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