Newtown dropped one rung on the state safety ladder to No. 3. What towns are 1 and 2?

NEWTOWN, CT — Newtown has once again been named among the "safest towns in Connecticut."

SafeWise, a security product review platform, looked at FBI crime statistics for municipalities in Connecticut to compile its 11th annual Safest Cities report. A total of 47 towns met the criteria to be considered for ranking.

Newtown came in this year at No. 3, dropping one rung from its 2024 position. Ridgefield stayed at No. 1, for the third year,

Overall, there was not a lot of motion among the other high achievers. The remaining nine cities all previously appeared on the Top 10 list over the last couple of years.

Ridgefield, Wallingford, Cheshire, and Westport reported zero murders and zero rapes, and Ridgefield was the only town to report fewer than 100 property crimes, coming in with 49. Wallingford and Shelton are the only two cities that saw a decrease in both property and violent crime year over year. The top 10 towns reported a combined total of just two murders.

Five of Connecticut's 10 safest cities — Newtown, Simsbury, Greenwich, Westport, and Vernon — saw a drop in violent crime but a rise in property crime, according to the report.

Cheshire was the only city with a decrease in property crime but a rise in violent crime. Two of the state's safest cities reported fewer than 10 burglaries: Ridgefield with zero, and Wallingford with eight.

In most of these cities, violent crime rates declined year over year, while property crime rates increased.

SafeWise analysts say they did not have enough data to calculate statewide crime rates for this year's report, but the annual State of Safety survey suggests violent crime and gun violence have increased in Connecticut. That broke out as 70 percent of Connecticut's 10 safest cities seeing a year-over-year decline in violent crime incidents per 1,000 people, while 70 percent of the safest cities saw an increase in property crime, with survey respondents experiencing fewer incidents.

The report is based upon voluntary, self-reported information that cities and jurisdictions across the country report through the FBI Summary Reporting System (SRS) and National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). For the 2025 reporting year, the most recent FBI data was released in October 2024 for crimes reported in 2023. Read more about the methodology here.