Broadly yes, though not as emphatically as the postcard implies. Recorded crime sits slightly above the county average rather than comfortably below it. The absolute count is small. The gap between the two is narrow enough that a handful of incidents shifts it. A town is still a town, even when the nearest traffic jam is agricultural.
Police.uk recorded 295 crimes across the area in the twelve months to May 2026, a published rate of about 61 per 1,000 residents, roughly 11% above the local authority average. Both of those are published figures rather than sums to attempt at home: the rate is built on statistical-area populations that do not match the resident headcount, so dividing the count by the population of the town produces a different number and no understanding whatsoever.
The Dorset average over the same twelve months is about 55 per 1,000. So the comparison is about 61 here against about 55 across an authority that is mostly countryside, which is a real difference and a small one. It is not a gap anyone would notice walking home from the pub.
The area itself is neither dense nor deserted. Population density averages roughly 1,900 people per square kilometre across its neighbourhoods, unemployment runs at about 1%, and about 2% of households are overcrowded. Those numbers describe the place. They do not explain the crime rate, and anyone presenting them as the cause is guessing with a straight face.
The category mix needs handling with tongs, because 295 crimes spread across 11 categories means a few incidents move a share by several points. On that basis, violence and sexual offences accounted for about 46% of recorded crime against about 35% across England and Wales, and anti-social behaviour about 29% against about 16%. The first of those is a broad statutory grouping that takes in common assault without injury, and it is the largest category almost everywhere, so the bare percentage tells you less than it appears to. Further down the list the local shares sit under the national ones: other theft about 5% against about 7%, public order about 5% against about 7%, criminal damage and arson about 4% against about 7%, and shoplifting about 3% against about 8%. One year of small numbers is a snapshot, not a personality.
What happens after a report is a force question rather than a local one. Dorset Police charged or summonsed a suspect in about 14% of cases over the same twelve months, against about 12% nationally, ranking the force twelfth of the 42 in England and Wales. About 35% of cases closed with no suspect identified at all. That is the honest answer to whether anyone gets caught, and it describes the force across the whole county rather than this town, so it belongs beside the crime rate rather than blended into it.
Safety here comes out middling: fractionally above the county on the rate, modest in volume, unremarkable in every direction that counts. Move for the fields by all means, just not on the assumption that crime respects a parish boundary.