Yes, to the point where the crime figures are almost boring. The recorded rate sits well under the Dorset average. The town is spread out, employment is high and almost nobody lives on top of anybody else. Whatever keeps you awake at night in Gillingham, it is unlikely to be the sound of the front gate. This is a quiet town with quiet numbers, and the interesting question is not whether it is safe but why anyone assumed otherwise.
Police.uk recorded 517 crimes in the area in the year to May 2026, which works out at a published rate of around 39 per thousand residents. That figure sits roughly a quarter below the wider Dorset average. Both numbers are published rates rather than anything calculated here, and the rate uses a different population base from the headline resident count, so the two are not meant to be divided into each other.
The comparison is worth seeing in full rather than as a bare adjective. Gillingham's rate of about 39 per thousand runs against a Dorset local-authority rate of about 55 per thousand, across an authority population of roughly 381,400. That gap is the whole story of this answer, and it holds across a full twelve months rather than a lucky quarter.
The texture behind those numbers is what you would expect of a rural market town. Population density averages around 3,414 people per square kilometre across the built-up parts, which sounds higher than the fields outside suggest until you remember it measures the town rather than the parish. Unemployment sits at about 2%. Overcrowded households account for around 2% of the total, which is about as low as that measure goes in England. None of that causes the crime rate on its own, but it is the kind of place these figures usually come from.
On the mix, violence and sexual offences make up around 36% of recorded crime here, against about 35% nationally, so essentially the national picture. That category is a broad statutory grouping that includes common assault without injury, and it is the largest category almost everywhere, which is why the bare number tells you less than the comparison does. Anti-social behaviour runs at around 24% locally against about 16% nationally, the one category meaningfully over the national share. Criminal damage and arson sits at around 10% against about 7%, other theft at around 8% against about 7%, burglary at around 7% against about 4%, and vehicle crime at around 5% against about 5%.
What happens after a report is a force-level question rather than a town one. Dorset Police charge a suspect in about 14% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which ranks the force twelfth of 42. In about 35% of cases the investigation closes with nobody identified, which is the honest answer to whether anyone gets caught. Those are decisions made across the whole force area, not on these streets, and they measure something different from how safe the town is.
Safety is where Gillingham quietly beats most of the county, and it does it on a full year of recorded figures rather than a reputation. If you are weighing this town against somewhere with a better train service or a better flood report, this is not the column where you will find the catch.