PORTLAND, Maine — New data submitted from law enforcement agencies around the nation to the FBI show Maine has the lowest violent crime rate in the country.
The data, showcasing numbers from 2022, reported Maine's violent crime rate at 103.3 per 100,000 people. In 2021, it was 112.9.
Meanwhile, the national average is three times that amount, with 380.7 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
Sheriff William King of York County said Maine's numbers are worth celebrating, but knows there is still a lot of work to do.
"We take those stats very seriously, in that it allows us to make data-driven decisions," King said. "A lot of crimes are driven with a drug connection, and driven because of someone's need for an opiate."
King said working toward reducing drug addiction and drug dealing is a way to reduce Maine's violent crime rate even further.
But when it comes to issues such as hate crimes, Maine's rates are not the lowest; it has consistently been high since a spike in 2020.
In 2022, Maine reported 81 hate crimes. In 2021, it was 75. In 2020, it was 84.
Out of those stats in 2022, the highest number of hate crimes were committed based on race, with 23 specifically anti-black hate crimes.
Sixty of the 81 cases of hate crimes in 2022 were committed by white people.
"If we are going to address the hate crime problem in America we need to understand the magnitude of it," Michael Lieberman, the Senior Policy Counsel, of Hate & Extremism with the Southern Poverty Law Center, said.
Lieberman said the data shows 2022 saw some of the lowest participation in law enforcement agencies reporting hate crimes since 2012, yet the nationwide number was still high.
He said around 3,000 agencies did not report hate crimes to the FBI, out of 18,000 agencies that normally report.