Yes, and by a clear margin. Recorded crime here runs about a third below the district average. The whole town logged 269 offences across a year. Quiet is the default setting rather than a selling line. The more interesting question is not whether crime happens, it is what happens after somebody reports it.
The police.uk figures put recorded crime in Chudleigh at about 41 offences per 1,000 residents in the twelve months to May 2026, from 269 recorded offences over that period, roughly 33% below the Teignbridge average. Both of those are published figures calculated on statistical-area populations, which is not the same thing as the count of people living in the town divided into the count of crimes, so the arithmetic will not reconcile on the back of an envelope and is not supposed to.
Put the two rates side by side and the gap is easy to see: about 41 per 1,000 here against about 61 per 1,000 across Teignbridge as a whole, over the same twelve months. Same force, same recording standards, same year. The difference is the place.
The surrounding texture is what you would find in most quiet Devon towns. Population density averages about 3,500 people per square kilometre across the area's small statistical neighbourhoods, which reflects the built-up parts rather than the fields around them. Unemployment sits at about 2% and overcrowded households at about 1% on the 2021 Census. None of those figures makes a place safe on its own, and treating them as a formula for crime is how people end up with confident opinions and no evidence, but they do describe the kind of settled, low-churn town the crime numbers come from.
On what the offences actually are, the mix comes with a serious health warning: with 269 crimes spread across 13 categories, a handful of incidents moves any share by several points, so this is a snapshot rather than a characteristic. Violence and sexual offences make up about 50% of the local total against about 35% nationally, which sounds worse than it is: that category is a broad statutory grouping covering everything up to common assault without injury, and it is the largest category almost everywhere in England and Wales. Criminal damage and arson run at about 12% locally against about 7% nationally. Anti-social behaviour goes the other way, about 7% here against about 16% nationally. Other theft at about 7% and public order at about 6% sit within a point of the national shares, and shoplifting at about 6% against about 8% nationally is close enough not to bother arguing about.
Then there is the part nobody puts on a property listing. Devon and Cornwall Police charged a suspect in about 8% of cases over the same twelve months, against about 12% nationally, which places the force 42nd of the 42 in England and Wales. About 26% of cases closed with no suspect identified at all. That is a force-wide figure covering everything from Plymouth to the moor, not a measure of this town, and it answers a completely different question from the crime rate: not how likely something is to happen to you, but how likely anyone is to be charged for it if it does. Low crime and low charge rates are both true here, and only one of them is good news.
Safety is the strongest card Chudleigh holds, and it holds it comfortably. Whatever eventually persuades somebody not to move here, it will not be the crime figures.