New Hampshire’s 20 Safest Cities of 2022

The SafeWise Team is pleased to release the eighth annual Safest Cities report.

See if your city made the full list.

In New Hampshire, 42% of residents are concerned for their safety daily, which isn't far from the national average of 47%. Despite this near-average level of concern, people in New Hampshire reported fewer personal experiences with crimes than in previous years.

The Granite State has some of the lowest crime rates in the country—rates that continue to decline. Unsurprisingly, its safest cities come in well below the state average for violent crime and property crime.

• Violent crime rates
• Property crime rates
• Interesting findings
• The Safest Cities
• Methodology
• How to make a safe home anywhere
• How other cities compare
• How other states compare

New Hampshire comes in well below US averages for violent crime and property crime. Its already-low violent crime rate made improvements this year, dropping from 1.6 incidents per 1,000 people to 1.5. Likewise, the property crime rate decreased from 12.2  to 11.0.

New Hampshire’s violent crime rate is the second-lowest in the country (behind Maine), and its property crime rate claims the same rank (with only Massachusetts beating it). Both of these states are its regional New England neighbors—the region with the lowest crime rates in the country.

Compared with last year, a greater number of New Hampshirites expressed daily worry over their personal safety. Still, State of Safety survey respondents reported fewer personal experiences with crime and violence in the past 12 months. 

Most notably, none of the participants reported experiencing violent crimes, making New Hampshire the only state in the nation to do so. Experiences with property crime and gun violence dropped by over half and two-thirds respectively when compared to our previous survey's results.

We asked New Hampshire residents which crimes they worry may happen to them. See if New Hampshire residents are concerned about the same crime issues as the rest of the country.

View the complete 2022 State of Safety report.

Four out of five residents in New Hampshire feel safe in their home state. This is likely a result of the state's low violent crime rate and zero self-reported experiences with violent crime in the last year. But rape appears to account for a higher percentage of violent crimes than most states.

• 80% of people in New Hampshire reported feeling safe in their state compared to 55% of Americans—only Wyoming residents (86%) reported higher levels.
• No Granite Staters reported having a personal experience with violent crime in the last 12 months—down from 5% last year.
• New Hampshire ranks number 2 in the list of lowest violent crime rates in the country and is one of just 15 states to see a drop in the violent crime rate year over year.
• Murder is the least common violent crime in The Granite State, making up 1% of violent crimes.
• Rape makes up 27% of violent crimes in New Hampshire, only being surpassed by Maine for the highest percentage of reported rapes in the country.
• 33% of survey participants report using some form of personal protection like pepper spray—about the same as the US average (34%).
• 29% of residents in New Hampshire say their personal safety has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic compared to 44% of Americans—only 3 states reported lower numbers.

• 51% of New Hampshire residents cited gun violence as a top safety concern—just under the US average of 53%.
• 28% are most worried about a gun violence incident happening to them (US 38%). Gun violence is residents’ lowest concern compared to property crime, package theft, and general violent crime.
• 3% of survey respondents reported experiencing gun violence in the 12 months prior to the survey, a threefold decrease from 9% last year.
• There was 1 mass shooting New Hampshire in 2021 while there were none in the 2 previous years.

New Hampshire residents reported fewer experiences with property crime than the previous year. This aligns with the state's decreasing property crime rate. Residents were also less likely than any other state to say that the COVID-19 affected the security of their personal property.

• Less than half as many New Hampshirites (9%) reported personal experiences with property crime year over year (20%).
• Burglary accounts for 9% of all property crimes in The Granite State.
• 14% of participants reported experiencing package theft in the last 12 months, putting New Hampshire well below the US average of 20%. It's the second lowest in the country behind Arkansas (12%).
• 57% of residents in New Hampshire use some form of property protection. This is close to the 60% national average.
• The top form of property protection in New Hampshire this reporting year was guard animals with 37% of survey respondents using them. 
• Just 13% of Granite Staters say the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the security of their property—this is the lowest (tied with Wyoming) in the US, which averages 29%.

For the purposes of this report, the terms “dangerous” and “safest” refer explicitly to crime rates as calculated from FBI crime data—no other characterization of any community is implied or intended.

• Danville dropped from our number 1 last year to this year's number 10.
• Atkinson went up two spots to take the crown as the number 1 city this year.
• Every safest city reported violent crime incidents in the single digits, and 6 reported 0 incidents.
• Every safest city reported 0.5 or fewer violent crimes per 1,000 residents—except for Danville, which landed at 0.7.
• Burglaries were slashed in half among the safest cities year over year.
• All safest cities reported fewer than 5.5 property crimes per 1,000 residents.
• No safest city reported more than 52 total property crimes.

Learn how we identified the safest cities on our methodology page.

Whether your city made our list or not, we encourage everyone to be proactive about home security. One of the best ways to stop a burglary before it happens is to add a home security system.

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We calculated crime rates for every city in the state that met our population threshold, based on the state’s median population as calculated using FBI data. To request a report of the remaining cities in your state, sign up for our email newsletter (we make it easy in a quick form below!) or email info@safewise.com with the subject line: Safest Cities Full Report.

NOTE: If you don’t see your city on the list, it means that it was below the population threshold or didn’t submit a complete crime report to the FBI in 2020.

Click on the state image or dropdown menu below to check out the safest cities for each state.

• Best Home Security Systems
• Best Home Security Cameras
• Best Video Doorbell Cameras
• Burglary Stats & Facts
• The Most Burglarized City in Every State

FBI: Crime Data Explorer, Accessed March 8, 2022.

US Census Bureau, "Data Explorer," Accessed January 24, 2022.

Best Places, “Find a Place Search Tool,” Accessed January 24, 2022.

SafeWise, “2021 State of Safety survey,” Accessed March 8, 2022.

Gun Violence Archive, “Past Summary Ledgers,” Accessed January 24, 2022.

Gun Violence Archive, “General Methodology,” Accessed March 8, 2022.

Melody Hicks, Ben Stickle, Joshua Harms, American Journal of Criminal Justice, “Assessing the Fear of Package Theft,” January 04, 2021. Accessed March 8, 2022.

For definitions and more on data sources, see our methodology page.