Yes, Box is safe, and quieter than the county around it. Recorded crime runs well below the Wiltshire average. Almost nobody is out of work. Almost nobody lives crammed in. In most weeks the fiercest dispute in the village is a planning objection.
Wiltshire Police recorded crime in Box at a published rate of about 44 per 1,000 residents in the year from June 2025 to May 2026, roughly 30% below the Wiltshire average. That's 140 recorded crimes over the twelve months. Both are published figures for the small statistical areas that cover the village, and the rate is calculated on those areas' own population, so it won't match a sum you do at home with the parish headcount.
Put the two numbers side by side. Box runs at about 44 crimes per 1,000 people. Wiltshire as a whole runs at about 62. Wiltshire is not a county anyone describes as lawless, and Box still comes in well under it, which should settle the nerves of anyone moving from a city who has been reading local social media groups at midnight.
The neighbourhood behind those figures is settled. The average population density across the village's small areas is about 1,060 people per square kilometre, a village figure rather than a town one. Unemployment sits at about 2%, and about 1% of households are overcrowded. None of that proves why crime is low, but it's the texture of a place where people own their houses, know the neighbours' cars and notice a strange van within the hour.
The mix needs handling carefully, because the base is small. Violence and sexual offences made up about 30% of recorded crime, against about 35% nationally, so slightly below the usual share for a category that covers everything from serious assault to a shove with no injury. Anti-social behaviour was about 22%, against about 16% nationally. Burglary was about 11%, against about 4% nationally. Public order offences were about 10% against about 7%, criminal damage and arson about 9% against about 7%, and other theft about 6% against about 7%. With only 140 crimes in the year, a few incidents move any of these shares by several points. The burglary share is worth knowing about, but read it as a small-number swing and not as a settled feature of the village, because on these totals it can't be anything more.
What happens after a report is a different question, and it's answered at force level, not village level. Wiltshire Police charged a suspect in about 10% of cases over the same twelve months, against about 12% nationally, which places the force 32nd of 42 in England and Wales. About 34% of cases were closed with no suspect identified. That says nothing about how likely a crime is in Box. It says how the county's police force performs once one has happened, and the honest answer there is below the national line. The estate agent's "very safe village" and the charge rate are describing two different things, and only one of them is about Box.
Safety is one of Box's real strengths: crime sits well below a county that is already quiet, and the main thing a new arrival has to guard against is the assumption that low crime means none.