Yes, and not by a narrow margin. The recorded crime rate here sits at well under half the rate for Dorset as a whole. The annual offence count for the entire area would be a slow fortnight in most towns. Nothing in the numbers suggests a place with a problem it is quietly not mentioning. If you are moving here from anywhere with a night bus, the adjustment will be to how little happens.
Police.uk records 173 crimes across the area in the twelve months to May 2026, which works out at a published rate of about 23 per thousand residents. That figure sits roughly 58% below the local-authority average. Both numbers are published as they stand, and the rate is calculated against the statistical population base used for crime reporting rather than by dividing one of those figures by the other.
The comparison is worth seeing in full rather than as a percentage. Dorset as a whole records about 55 crimes per thousand residents over the same period. Charminster and its surrounding villages record about 23. That is the gap between a county that contains busy seaside towns and a chalk valley where the through traffic is mostly agricultural.
The texture behind those numbers is what you would guess. Unemployment across the area runs at about 2%, and about 2% of households are classed as overcrowded, both of which describe a settled place rather than a pressured one. Population density averages around 1,800 people per square kilometre across the small statistical areas used, which sounds surprisingly urban until you remember that people here cluster into the village while the land around them is fields. None of this causes the crime rate to be what it is; it just describes the kind of area producing it.
The mix needs handling with care, because 173 offences spread across 13 categories is a small base and a handful of incidents moves any share by several points. On that basis, violence and sexual offences account for about 48% of recorded crime here against about 35% nationally, and that category is a broad statutory grouping covering everything up to and including common assault without injury, which is why it tops the table almost everywhere in the country. Anti-social behaviour sits at about 15% locally against about 16% nationally, and vehicle crime at about 5% against about 5%, both of which are effectively the national picture. Criminal damage and arson runs at about 11% locally against about 7% nationally, and public order at about 8% against about 7%. Read any of those as a description of one year rather than a settled characteristic of the village.
What happens after a report is a force question rather than a village one. Dorset Police charge or summons a suspect in about 14% of cases against about 12% nationally, over the same twelve months, which ranks the force 12th of the 42 forces in England and Wales. About 35% of cases close with no suspect identified, which is the honest answer to whether anyone gets caught. That measure says nothing about how safe this particular area is, because charging decisions are made force-wide and carry no street-level signal at all.
Safety is the single strongest thing Charminster has going for it, and the numbers are emphatic rather than merely respectable. Buy here for many reasons; worrying about your car overnight will not be one of them.