Kennebunk named safest community in Maine: Police chief explains why

KENNEBUNK, Maine — Kennebunk did not have a single reported violent crime in 2022, making it the safest town in Maine, according to Safewise, a nationally known company that focuses on home security.

Police Chief Robert MacKenzie recently confirmed that statistic. No murders. No manslaughter cases. No rapes. No assaults.

Not even a report of, say, a guy getting punched in the nose during a fight in a parking lot some place where drinks are served on a Friday night?

Nope.

“It’s significant,” MacKenzie said. “I think that says something about our people that live here and come here."

Kennebunk is the only town in the York County Coast Star coverage area to make Safewise’s list of the state’s top ten safest communities. Here in York County, only Eliot also made the list, landing in the fifth spot.

In reaching the top of the list, Kennebunk overtook Cumberland, which Safewise had deemed the safest town in Maine for the past three years.

Safewise compiles the list annually after analyzing data provided by police departments to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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During a recent Select Board meeting, the Safewise designation was mentioned during a brief statement read straight from that night’s agenda. It was an unceremonious announcement that did not prompt any comments from any of the board members or the public when it was over.

There’s a reason for that. This is not the first time Kennebunk has risen to the top of Safewise’s list. According to MacKenzie, the town has received that designation often over the past decade or so.

How often? Enough so that the Kennebunk-Kennebunkport-Arundel Chamber of Commerce does not necessarily go all-out with the Safewise designation when marketing the community.

“We have included the ‘safest’ info in our guidebook each year, but honestly don't do much beyond that,” Chamber Executive Director Laura Dolce said in a recent email. “We have so many great attributes – the beach, beautiful scenery, top-notch schools, wonderful residents, thriving businesses – that being the safest is just one among many.”

Dolce praised the local Police Department.

“Of course, we are huge fans and supporters of our Police Department, which we think is pretty special and deserves all the credit for keeping us safe,” Dolce said.

During a recent interview, MacKenzie shared that credit with the community, which he said has a solid, helpful see-something-say-something approach to public safety.

“I do believe our community is pretty vigilant,” MacKenzie said. “We don’t care if we get a call, and it turns out to be nothing. We’d rather that happen a thousand times than not get a call and something happens.”

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What's Kennebunk's secret to low crime stats?

So at a time when domestic violence, assaults and even murders made local headlines in 2022, what is the secret of Kennebunk’s success?

MacKenzie suggested the recipe. Kennebunk is a small community, both in terms of square miles and population, allowing his department’s staff of 24 full-time officers and seven part-time officers to have a high visibility among residents. Then there’s the aforementioned vigilance of residents as they go about their lives in the community.

But according to MacKenzie, one particular crucial piece is this: for a couple of years now, the department has had behavioral health professionals who act as liaisons to residents whose problems and challenges, if left unaddressed, could fester into deeper, more consequential issues for them.

Gone, then, are the days when officers reported to a home, settled a domestic matter, and then just left figuring they will be back some day to address an even bigger issue. Now, a behavioral health professional gets involves and connects residents to resources to help them address their issues, in the hope that they will not spiral further out of control.

“Law enforcement can’t do everything,” MacKenzie said. “What we can do is connect those people to the services that are out there and available.”

MacKenzie said he believes in communities funding their police department to allow them to work alongside experts in the field of behavioral health.

“That’s exactly what we’re doing here,” he said.

When it comes to property crimes in 2022 – vandalism, burglaries, criminal mischief, and so on – Kennebunk’s statistic came in at 4.5 per thousand people and kept it in the top ten of that category, as well.

MacKenzie attributed the low property crime rate to a few factors. One, he said, more people today have surveillance cameras set up on their properties. And two, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people are working at home, thwarting burglars, who often strike during the daytime, MacKenzie said.

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Safewise rankings based on FBI crime data

On its website, Safewise says it releases its annual rankings to highlight American cities with low crime rates and start conversations about how to make all communities safer. The company uses FBI crime data for its report, which means it relies solely on information provided voluntarily by communities that submit it to the FBI’s Summary Reporting System and the National Incident-Based Reporting System.

Safewise also has a population threshold that it uses, reporting only on communities with populations above the median for each state. Communities with less than 2,500 residents are not a part of the report.

“This reduces the risk of outliers and lowers the likelihood of an extreme outlier skewing the data,” said Rebecca Edwards, a security expert and safety and technology reporter. “Because every city in a state may not report to the FBI, a state's total population may not be accounted for, and the median population we determine is likely different than a median based on U.S. Census data.”

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Edwards acknowledged that the FBI data is just one of the ways a community reports its crime statistics.

“To make sure that we’re comparing apples to apples, we’ve chosen to use this data as the basis of our ‘safest’ cities reporting,” Edwards said. “Plus, this is the most consistent report available for most cities across the nation.”

To keep its reputation as a safe community, MacKenzie urges residents and business owners not to become complacent and slip into a mindset of “nothing ever happens here.”

“In fact, things do happen here,” he said. “People still have to be vigilant.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kennebunk ME named safest community in state