Here's a question for you, Berkshire County: Do you consider where you live "safe"? Do you feel reasonably safe on your block? Your street? Your neighborhood? If you don't, rest assured, you're not alone.

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Recently SafeWise, an online resource that provides tools and info to help people make their life safer at home and in their neighborhoods, released a report of the "Safest Cities In Every State" for 2023.

Falling under that umbrella is SafeWise's report on the "20 Safest Cities In Massachusetts". Do you think any cities that are here in our beloved Berkshires made that list?

Before we get to the list, let's look at some of the criteria SafeWise used to come up with the rankings. They used everything from statistics concerning violent crime and property crime to some of the stats that "safe" towns have in common such as populations that are on the smaller side, high average median household income, etc.

As part of the report, SafeWise had this to say:

Our 2023 State of Safety survey found that Massachusetts ranks the lowest in property crime out of all the states on our report. We also found that Bay Staters are more concerned about their safety than the nation's average, which is surprising since violent crime in the state is also low.

Without further ado, here is SafeWise's list of "2023's Safest Cities In Massachusetts":

  1. Wayland
  2. Clinton
  3. Grafton
  4. Northborough
  5. Holden
  6. Westford
  7. Hopkinton
  8. Duxbury
  9. Scituate
  10. Pembroke
  11. Hanover
  12. Arlington
  13. Franklin
  14. Sudbury
  15. Winchester
  16. Charleton
  17. Wellesley
  18. Sharon
  19. Milton
  20. Bedford

Wow! Twenty cities and not one of them is here in Berkshire County! Kinda scary, huh? The closest city to the Berkshires is Charleton and that's way over in Worcester County, for crying out loud!

Hopefully, we can turn things around and make 2024's list. Take a look at the full report on SafeWise's website here.

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