Yes, and dully so. Recorded crime runs about a quarter below the county average. Two hundred and fifty-odd offences across the whole town in a year. Unemployment barely registers and overcrowded households are rarer still. Whatever keeps people awake at night in Lyme Regis, it is not the neighbours.
Dorset Police recorded 257 crimes here in the twelve months to May 2026, which works out as a published rate of about 41 offences per thousand people. That sits roughly 25% below the Dorset average. Both figures are published rates calculated on statistical-area populations, so they are not something to re-derive at the kitchen table from a town headcount and a calculator: the denominators are not the ones a reader would reach for.
The comparison is worth seeing in full rather than as a percentage. Dorset as a whole runs at about 55 recorded offences per thousand people. This town runs at about 41. That gap is the entire safety story, and it is unusual to find it in a place with this much seasonal footfall passing through.
The texture underneath the number is a small, tightly packed, comfortably employed town. Population density averages about 2,606 people per square kilometre, which sounds urban until you remember it describes a built-up area squeezed into a narrow coastal footprint rather than anything with a tower block in it. Unemployment sits at about 2%. Overcrowded households account for about 1% of the stock. None of those figures causes the crime rate, and none of them should be read as doing so. They describe the kind of place that produces this sort of number rather than explaining it.
The mix needs handling with care, because 257 crimes across twelve categories is a small enough base that a bad fortnight in one category shifts a share by several points. With that firmly in mind: violence and sexual offences account for about 39% of recorded crime here against about 35% nationally, which is close, and which in both cases is a broad statutory grouping covering everything from serious assault down to common assault without injury. Anti-social behaviour makes up about 19% locally against about 16% nationally. Criminal damage and arson about 9% against 7%. Other theft about 7% against about 7%, and public order about 5% against about 7%, so on both of those the town is at or below the national shape. The one that stands out is burglary at about 8% locally against about 4% nationally. On a base this small that is a difference worth knowing about and not one worth building a personality around.
What happens after a report is a separate question from how much crime there is, and the two get blended constantly. Dorset Police charge a suspect in about 14% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts the force twelfth out of 42. About 35% of cases are closed with no suspect ever identified. That is force-wide performance covering the whole of Dorset over the twelve months to May 2026, not a measure of this town, and it answers the question "will they catch them" rather than "will it happen". The honest reading is that the odds of a charge are marginally better than the national average and still not what most people assume when they dial the number.
Safety is the strongest thing this town has going for it, and it does not need arguing: a rate a quarter under the county's, in a place small enough that everybody notices anything unusual.