Yes, and not marginally. Recorded crime here runs at roughly half the district rate. The entire year's tally is a number you could read aloud in under a minute. The population is small, spread thin and almost entirely in work. Safety is the thing this place does best, and it needs no help from the brochure to prove it.
The police.uk figures put recorded crime at about 38 offences per 1,000 residents over the twelve months to May 2026, from 110 recorded offences in total. That sits about 48% below the North Devon average. Both of those are published figures rather than a sum anyone has done in the margin, and the rate uses its own statistical population base, so dividing 110 by the number of people living here will give you a different and wrong answer.
The comparison is worth seeing in full rather than as a percentage. North Devon as a whole records about 73 offences per 1,000 residents across a population of roughly 98,600. Chivenor and Wrafton records about 38. Same police force, same district, half the rate.
The texture behind those numbers is what you would find on a walk. Population density averages about 1,360 people per square kilometre, measured across the built-up area rather than the farmland wrapped around it. Unemployment sits at about 2%. Overcrowded households are about 1%. None of that causes anything on its own, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling a theory rather than reading a table. It is simply the profile of a small, settled, working place with room between the houses.
The mix of what gets recorded comes with a warning attached. Violence and sexual offences account for about 57% of the total here, against about 35% nationally, which sounds worse than it is: that category is a broad statutory grouping covering everything up to serious assault and everything down to common assault without injury, and it is the largest category almost everywhere in England and Wales. Other theft is about 10% locally against about 7% nationally, criminal damage and arson about 10% against about 7%, and burglary about 4% locally and nationally, which is to say identical. Anti-social behaviour runs about 6% here against about 16% nationally. With 110 offences spread across ten categories, a single incident-heavy month rewrites those percentages, so treat the mix as a snapshot rather than a personality.
What happens after a report is a separate question, and the answer is a force-wide one. Devon and Cornwall Police charged a suspect in about 8% of cases over the twelve months to May 2026, against about 12% nationally, which ranks the force 42nd out of 42. About 26% of cases closed with nobody identified at all. None of that is a measure of how safe this village is, and it should never be blended with the crime rate. It answers a different and more deflating question, which is what realistically follows once you have made the call.
Safety is the strongest card Chivenor and Wrafton holds. The rate is low, the comparison with the surrounding district is not close, and the honest caveat is about what happens after a crime rather than about how often one occurs.