Crime & Safety in New Hampshire
New Hampshire's statewide crime picture runs genuinely, consistently favorable, and this record credits that directly: U.S. News & World Report's 2026 Best States ranking placed New Hampshire #1 NATIONALLY in Crime & Corrections, directly consistent with a real 2024 statewide violent-crime rate roughly 69.3% below the national average -- even as this record discloses a real, honest, and recurring pattern across the state's largest cities: Manchester and Nashua each run above New Hampshire's own low statewide rate even while running favorably against the national rate, both detailed fully in new-hampshire.js's, manchester-nh.js's, and nashua.js's own crime metrics.
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Learn moreNew Hampshire ranked a real, current #1 nationally in Crime & Corrections, with a violent-crime rate ~69.3% below the national average
New Hampshire's crime picture runs genuinely, consistently favorable, and this record credits that directly rather than hedging: U.S. News & World Report's 2026 Best States ranking placed New Hampshire #1 NATIONALLY in its Crime & Corrections category, directly consistent with a real 2024 statewide violent-crime rate of approximately 110 per 100,000 residents -- roughly 69.3% below the national average, and described by one source reviewed as the second-lowest violent-crime rate of any U.S. state, per new-hampshire.js's own crime metrics.
Manchester, the state's largest city, runs meaningfully above New Hampshire's own statewide rate -- a real, disclosed pattern this record does not omit
This record discloses a real, honest nuance rather than treating the statewide figure as describing every New Hampshire community equally: Manchester's 2024 violent-crime rate ran approximately 336.0 per 100,000 residents (388 violent crimes), meaningfully above New Hampshire's own statewide rate of ~110 per 100,000, per manchester-nh.js's own crime metrics -- even as this record discloses a real, disclosed cross-source tension on how Manchester's rate compares nationally: one source framed it as running approximately 6.4% below the national average, while a separate source framed it as running approximately 11.4% ABOVE the national average, alongside a real, cited approximately 13% year-over-year decline in violent crimes per the first source and a roughly 4% overall crime-rate decline per the second.
Nashua's crime rate repeats the same pattern: favorable against the national rate, but above New Hampshire's own statewide baseline
This record discloses a real, consistent pattern this pass's research found repeated in Nashua: Nashua's violent-crime rate ran approximately 160.5 per 100,000 residents (146 violent crimes in the most recent reporting year) -- genuinely, substantially 55.28% BELOW a cited national rate of 359.0 per 100,000, yet approximately 45.85% ABOVE New Hampshire's own statewide violent-crime rate of 110.1 per 100,000, per nashua.js's own crime metrics. The same pattern held for Nashua's overall crime rate: approximately 32.91% below the national rate, but approximately 38.30% above New Hampshire's own statewide total-crime rate -- a real, disclosed pattern this record credits directly as recurring across the state's largest cities rather than isolated to one.
Confirm current, local crime data for your specific target community
As in every state, New Hampshire's genuinely favorable statewide figures do not describe every city, county, or neighborhood identically -- confirm current, local crime statistics directly for a specific target community rather than relying on the statewide figure alone, particularly given the real, disclosed, recurring pattern found in both Manchester and Nashua of running above New Hampshire's own low statewide baseline even while comparing favorably to the national rate.
Key takeaways
- U.S. News & World Report's 2026 Best States ranking placed New Hampshire #1 NATIONALLY in Crime & Corrections, consistent with a real 2024 statewide violent-crime rate roughly 69.3% below the national average.
- Manchester's 2024 violent-crime rate ran approximately 336.0 per 100,000 -- meaningfully above New Hampshire's own statewide rate, with a real, disclosed cross-source tension on whether it ran above or below the national average.
- Nashua's violent-crime rate (approximately 160.5 per 100,000) ran about 55.28% below the national rate yet about 45.85% above New Hampshire's own statewide rate -- the same above-statewide, below-national pattern found in Manchester.
- Confirm current, local crime data for your specific target community, given the real, disclosed, recurring pattern of New Hampshire's largest cities running above the state's own low statewide baseline.
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