Mapped: The Safest and Most Dangerous States in America

Let’s talk about something we all think about—whether we admit it or not: how safe is the place you call home? Whether it’s walking back from the grocery store after dark or letting your kids play outside, that feeling of safety shapes our daily lives more than we realize.

I recently came across the 2025 public safety rankings from U.S. News & World Report—and honestly, the numbers surprised me. These rankings combine violent and property crime rates into a single score, and the variation between states is pretty striking. So I did what any data-curious person would do: I turned it into maps to see what patterns might emerge.

This map shows public safety rankings across all 50 U.S. states, with green shades representing the safest states and red indicating areas with higher crime rates. Right away, you can see some clear regional patterns forming.

New England really stands out—there’s something happening up there that’s working. Meanwhile, several states in the South and Southwest are clearly facing ongoing challenges with crime rates.

The Safest States in 2025

The top five states might not shock you: New Hampshire, Maine, Idaho, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Most of these states have small populations, relatively high levels of social trust, and often strong public institutions. There’s also a rural-urban angle—less population density sometimes means fewer crimes.

The Biggest Safety Challenges

At the other end of the spectrum, we have New Mexico, Colorado, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Each state’s situation is unique, but common threads include economic inequality, urban crime, and historical underinvestment in public services can all be part of the picture. Take New Mexico, for example—it’s struggled for years with both property crime and violent crime rates that are well above the national average.

These visualizations raise more questions than they answer—and that’s exactly the point. Why does one state consistently outperform its neighbors? Which policies have made measurable differences? How can communities learn from each other’s successes and failures?