Conn., most of New England among nation’s safest states
The chances of becoming a violent crime victim in the state was 1 in 666, according to the report
Connecticut and most of its New England neighbors are among the safest states in the nation, with relatively low rates of both violent and property crime, according to a recent analysis.
New Hampshire was listed as the safest state and New Mexico as the most crime-ridden, according to the report by Forbes Advisor. Connecticut was No. 4 among the safest states, which also included Maine (No. 2), Rhode Island (No. 3) and Vermont (No. 10), according to the analysis of FBI data.
Connecticut’s rate of violent crime was 1.5 per 1,000 residents and the property crime rate was 14.94 per 1,000 people. The chances of becoming a violent crime victim in the state was 1 in 666, according to the report. In contrast, New Mexico’s violent crime rate was 7.8 per 1,000 residents, with a property crime rate of 29.84 and the chance of becoming a violent crime victim listed at 1 in 128.
“When it comes to the safest states, there’s a very clear trend,” Forbes Advisor reported. “New England and the Northeast are the country’s safest places to visit or live.”
Massachusetts was the only outlier among the six New England states, listed at No. 36 of the 50 states, from safest to most unsafe.
“The smaller and more homogenous populations of many New England states, coupled with generally high educational attainment and median incomes, help explain why so many states in this region have low crime rates,” report author Christy Bieber wrote.
However, those numbers do not tell the whole story in Connecticut. The state’s most recent annual Unified Crime Report offers both a positive and negative outlook. The numbers showed total crime, violent crime, and property crime have all dropped, often significantly, since 2013, and each category posted modest decreases between 2021 and 2022.
But two high-profile crimes — murder and car theft — defied the downward trend. The state’s murder rate per 100,000 residents rose 44.4 percent since 2013 and motor vehicle theft was up 15.4 percent. Connecticut’s numbers follow the national trend: most types of crime are down while murder and car theft remain stubbornly high.
In the last 10 years, total crime per 100,000 residents fell by 24 percent; violent crime by 40.7 percent; and property crime 27.7 percent. Those decreases continued from 2021 and 2022: total crime per 100,000 residents dropped 1.9 percent; violent crime dropped 8.2 percent; murder 15 percent; property crime 0.9 percent; and motor vehicle theft 6.2 percent.
But last year’s drops in murder and motor vehicle theft rates shade the fact that both crimes have increased significantly over the last decade. For example, between 2013 and 2022, the number of murders in the state increased 46.2 percent and the number of vehicles stolen rose 14.2 percent, the statistics show.
There were 36 homicides in Hartford in 2023, down from 40 in 2022, which marked the highest homicide total since 2003. The homicide totals for the past two years paint a bleak picture for a city that from 2016 through 2020, didn’t have more than 30 homicides in a single year. Like cities across the U.S., Hartford saw a spike in violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, however, nonfatal shootings fell below 100 for the first time in nearly a decade.
“You have to look at this in totality,” Jeremy Stein, executive director of CT Against Gun Violence, said. “Yeah, the gun deaths are higher, but overall shootings are lower.”
Connecticut residents overall face much lower crime rates than New Mexico and several other western and southern states. High levels of gun violence have been chronic in New Mexico, particularly in its capital city of Albuquerque, according to published reports.
However, there have been positive signs recently, the Albuquerque Journal reported in February. The city recorded a 19 percent drop in homicides last year, from 121 in 2022 to 98 in 2023, the newspaper reported, marking the largest annual decrease since 2010. The city also saw a 6 percent drop in nonfatal shootings, the paper reported.