Damariscotta, ME has a A safety grade (80/100) with a violent crime rate of 87 per 100,000, 75% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Damariscotta's UCR row covers a small municipal population (2,307). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to ME and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Damariscotta, ME carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 75% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Damariscotta, ME shows violent crime at 86.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,257 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 75% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Damariscotta reported 2 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 2,307. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Damariscotta's 86.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Rockland (85.0), Clinton (88.5), Yarmouth (88.5), Windham (84.7). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 139.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 86.7 in 2024 (-38.0%). The highest observed value was 139.9 in 2020 and the lowest 42.9 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 86.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Damariscotta ranks 31 of 101 — above 70 of the 100 other Maine cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +48.9% against the cohort median of 58.2. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 93.1% of reported property offenses in Damariscotta, against a cohort median of 84.8%. The remainder is burglary (0) and motor vehicle theft (2). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Damariscotta's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 2 reported violent incidents in a population of 2,307. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
On a small municipal row, small denominators make rates sensitive to a handful of incidents. Figures are reported totals, not neighbourhood advice.
Across 3.5 Census sq mi, Damariscotta logged 8.4 property and 0.6 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Damariscotta's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (87% of 31 offenses; mix index 7,669).
Violent offenses are only 6% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Damariscotta offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (3.5 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 29 | 1257 |
| Larceny-Theft | 27 | 1170.4 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 2 | 86.7 |
| Burglary | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 2 | 86.7 |
| Rape | 2 | 86.7 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
| Aggravated Assault | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 2,144 | 139.9 | 1819 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 2,153 | 46.4 | 1068.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 2,332 | 42.9 | 729 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 2,304 | 43.4 | 868.1 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 2,307 | 86.7 | 1257 |
Damariscotta Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Damariscotta's 31 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Maine cities closest to Damariscotta in population. Their populations run from 1,824 to 2,761, against 2,307 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Damariscotta sits at 86.7/100K violent (grade A); the Maine cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Damariscotta reported 2 violent crimes and 29 property crimes, for a total of 31 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Damariscotta's violent crime rate increased by 99.8%, and the property crime rate increased by 44.8%.
The most common crime type in Damariscotta is larceny-theft, accounting for 87.1% of all reported crimes (27 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Damariscotta's FBI UCR Table 8 row (2024) is the only source for the rates above.
With a small population base, per-100,000 rates amplify sparse counts. Incomplete submissions are excluded from rankings. See FBI.gov UCR for the raw Table 8 file.
Disclaimer (small municipal): small-base rates are especially easy to misread. Informational only - not advice. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Micro-municipal rate methodology for how Damariscotta's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Damariscotta, ME rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Damariscotta is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (2,307 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.