Saco, ME has a A safety grade (83/100) with a violent crime rate of 80 per 100,000, 77% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Saco (21,144 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then ME and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Saco, ME carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 77% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Saco, ME shows violent crime at 80.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,078.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 77% 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
Saco reported 17 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 21,144. 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 Saco's 80.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Rockport (81.4), Dexter (78.6), Wells (83.1), 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 119.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 80.4 in 2024 (-32.6%). The highest observed value was 152.8 in 2021 and the lowest 80.4 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 80.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Saco ranks 36 of 101 — above 65 of the 100 other Maine cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +38.1% 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 counts dominate Saco'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 17 reported violent incidents in a population of 21,144. 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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 38.6 Census sq mi, Saco logged 5.9 property and 0.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Saco's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (77% of 245 offenses; mix index 6,104).
Violent offenses are only 7% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Saco offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (38.6 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 | 228 | 1078.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 189 | 893.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 21 | 99.3 |
| Burglary | 18 | 85.1 |
| Arson | 3 | 14.2 |
| Violent Crime | 17 | 80.4 |
| Aggravated Assault | 9 | 42.6 |
| Rape | 8 | 37.8 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 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 | 20,133 | 119.2 | 1505 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 20,290 | 152.8 | 1113.8 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 20,936 | 143.3 | 1523.7 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 21,103 | 118.5 | 1431.1 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 21,144 | 80.4 | 1078.3 |
Saco Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Saco's 245 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 Saco in population. Their populations run from 18,344 to 24,147, against 21,144 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Saco sits at 80.4/100K violent (grade A); the Maine cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Saco at 80.4/100K violent and 1,078.3/100K property - matched below outside Maine (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
80.4/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,078.3/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Saco reported 17 violent crimes and 228 property crimes, for a total of 245 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Saco's violent crime rate decreased by 32.2%, and the property crime rate decreased by 24.7%.
The most common crime type in Saco is larceny-theft, accounting for 77.1% of all reported crimes (189 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Saco figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Saco's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Saco, 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. Saco is scored in the mid-size municipal band (21,144 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.