Yes, and its trouble comes in small sizes. Crime runs about a third below the Maidstone average. Hardly anyone is out of work. Kent Police charge suspects more often than most forces do. Quiet enough that one broken fence can keep the local online forum busy for a week.
Kent Police recorded crime in Marden at about 65 per 1,000 residents in the year from June 2025 to May 2026, roughly 31% below the Maidstone borough average. That's 404 recorded crimes over the twelve months. Both figures are published statistics, with the rate calculated on the population of the statistical areas behind it. The count is there for scale only, and dividing it by the village's headcount won't reproduce the rate.
Side by side, the numbers are plainer. Marden sits at about 65 crimes per 1,000 residents, and the Maidstone borough as a whole at about 94. Estate agents like "low crime" because it can't be checked. Those two figures can.
It's a settled sort of place, which is the texture behind those numbers. The average population density across its neighbourhoods is about 2,430 people per square kilometre, unemployment is about 2% and overcrowded homes are about 2%. None of that explains crime on its own, and none of it should be read as a cause. It describes the kind of village producing the figures: mostly employed, mostly with room to spare, mostly asleep by the time anything happens.
The mix comes with a warning, because the totals are small enough that a few incidents can shift any share by several points. With that in mind, anti-social behaviour made up about 30% of recorded crime over the year, against about 16% nationally. Violence and sexual offences, a broad legal category that includes common assault without injury and is the largest almost everywhere, made up about 29%, against about 35% nationally. Criminal damage and arson came to about 13% against 7% nationally, vehicle crime about 7% against 5%, other theft about 6% against 7%, and burglary about 5% against 4%. Read that as a snapshot of a low number, not a fixed character. When there isn't much crime, a vandalised bus shelter carries more of the percentages than it deserves.
What happens after a report is a separate question, and it's answered at force level, not village level. Kent Police charges a suspect in about 16% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which ranks it 6th of 42 forces. The other side of that is that about 36% of the force's cases close with nobody identified. That's the honest answer to "will they catch them". It says nothing about how likely a crime is here in the first place, and it shouldn't be mixed up with the rate above.
Safety is one of Marden's real strengths. Crime is low against its own borough, and the small amount that does happen is mostly the minor kind.