A community-driven safety perception survey. Your anonymous responses build a live, town-by-town Safety Index that anyone can explore.
Official crime numbers tell part of the story. But whether you walk your street at night, trust a knock at the door, or believe someone will answer when you call for help — that's the lived experience numbers miss. The Southcoast Safety Index captures both.
Researchers consistently find that the feeling of safety is driven by far more than crime rates alone. These are some of the biggest factors.
Broken streetlights, vacant buildings, and litter can make an area feel unsafe even when serious crime is rare. Environment shapes perception.
Neighbors who know one another report feeling safer. Strong social connection is one of the most reliable predictors of perceived safety.
Confidence that help will arrive — and be fair — affects how safe people feel as much as the actual response time does.
Income, housing security, and local investment correlate strongly with both real crime levels and how residents rate their own safety.
Both matter — and the gap between them is exactly what this index helps reveal.
Your gut sense of safety guides real decisions: where you walk, when you go out, whether you let your kids play outside. That feeling is valid data — and it's often invisible to officials.
Recorded crime tells us what happened and where. But it under-counts unreported incidents and can't explain why two streets with similar stats can feel completely different.
Choose your town and optionally drop an anonymous pin.
Answer quick questions on safety, police, and leadership.
No name, email, or account — ever. Your privacy is the point.
Your input feeds a live, town-by-town safety picture.
It takes about two minutes, and every response sharpens the picture for the whole region.
Figures shown are regional reference points drawn from public FBI Uniform Crime Reporting and Massachusetts data, and the broader research on safety perception. Verify and date all statistics before public launch on safesouthcoast.com.
Choose your town and optionally drop a pin. Only your general area is recorded — never a precise address.
YOUR_GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY at the top of the file) to activate the live map. The town selector works without it.
1 = Very Unsafe · 5 = Very Safe
1 = No confidence · 5 = Full confidence
These questions are about the offices and institutions that serve your community — not any individual person. 1 = No confidence · 5 = Full confidence
Many Southcoast communities are weighing "Flock" cameras — automated license plate readers (ALPRs) that photograph passing vehicles' plates. Supporters call them a useful crime-solving tool; critics raise privacy and surveillance concerns. This section is optional — skip it if you'd prefer.
They help police identify stolen vehicles, locate suspects, and solve crimes faster as an investigative tool.
They enable warrantless tracking of everyday drivers, retain location data, and can be shared with outside agencies.
Every field is optional and never tied to your identity. This helps reveal how safety perceptions differ across communities.
Each category contributes a weighted share to your overall confidence score. Longer bars contribute more.
Your score reflects how the community feels. For official records and public-safety data, these state and federal resources let you check the facts directly.
Community Crime Map Interactive map of reported incidents fed by participating police departments (LexisNexis). FBI Crime Data Explorer Official national and agency-level crime statistics from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program. MA Sex Offender Registry (SORB) The state's official public registry. Search Level 2 & 3 offenders by city or ZIP through the Commonwealth's vetted portal. Mass.gov Public Safety Statewide public-safety agencies, emergency services, and consumer protection resources.Get the monthly Southcoast Safety Index update plus our annual Year in Review — see how safety perceptions and community trust shift across the region. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Bottom line: we collect no personal identifiers. No name, email, phone number, IP-based identity, or account is ever required or stored.
The Southcoast Safety Index collects only the anonymous survey data you choose to submit:
Your survey response never includes your name, phone number, mailing address, government ID, payment information, or login credentials. We do not create user accounts and do not use third-party advertising trackers.
If you choose to subscribe to our monthly updates and Year in Review, we collect only the email address you provide. This is entirely optional and separate from the survey. Your newsletter email is never linked to your anonymous survey response — the two are stored independently, so a submission can never be traced to a subscriber. You can unsubscribe at any time, and we do not sell newsletter emails to advertisers.
Map pins are deliberately coarse. We round and generalize coordinates so that submissions reflect a neighborhood or area rather than an identifiable household. Reverse geocoding is used only to display the general area name back to you during the survey and is not stored at street level.
Aggregated, anonymized responses power the public Town Safety Index, category averages, and the submission map. Because data is anonymous and aggregated, individual submissions cannot be traced back to you.
We may also use this aggregated, anonymized data to produce reports, summaries, and insights that are shared with — or provided to — third parties, including town and city governments, community organizations, researchers, journalists, and private organizations. This may include arrangements in which such reports or insights are provided for a fee. In all cases, only aggregated and anonymized information is used: we do not sell, license, or otherwise disclose individual survey responses, and any shared data is presented at a level that cannot identify an individual respondent. Survey responses are never linked to newsletter email addresses for any purpose.
Anonymous responses may be retained indefinitely to support longitudinal community trend reporting and the analyses described above. Because no personal identifiers are stored with survey responses, retained data cannot identify any individual. Reasonable technical safeguards protect stored data.
Participation is entirely voluntary. You may decline any question, skip the map pin, and leave all demographic fields blank. Because submissions are anonymous, we are unable to locate, modify, or delete an individual response after it is submitted.
This survey is intended for general community members. The "Under 18" age option exists for completeness, but we do not knowingly collect identifying information from anyone, regardless of age.
We may update this policy as the project evolves. Material changes will be reflected in the "Last updated" date above.
For privacy questions, contact the project team at privacy@safesouthcoast.com or through the Thraxios project channel associated with this application.
By accessing or using the Southcoast Safety Index ("the Service"), you agree to these Terms of Use. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.
The Service is an anonymous, community-driven tool for gathering and displaying public perceptions of safety, police confidence, and leadership confidence across the Southcoast Massachusetts region. It reflects subjective opinion, not verified fact.
Results represent self-reported perceptions of participants. They are not official crime statistics, government data, or professional risk assessments, and should not be relied upon for safety, legal, real-estate, insurance, or emergency decisions. In an emergency, always call 911.
You agree to provide good-faith responses and not to: submit deliberately false or automated/bulk responses to manipulate results; attempt to de-anonymize other participants; interfere with, scrape, or attack the Service; or use the Service for any unlawful purpose.
The Service evaluates institutions and roles (e.g., "your local police department," "your mayor's office") rather than soliciting accusations against named individuals. Do not attempt to use the Service to defame specific persons.
The Service, its design, and aggregate data presentations are owned by the project operators. Aggregated, anonymized statistics may be shared publicly for civic and reporting purposes.
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including accuracy, completeness, or fitness for a particular purpose.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, the project operators are not liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from use of, or reliance on, the Service or its data.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.
We may revise these Terms at any time. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.
We are committed to making the Southcoast Safety Index usable by everyone, including people with disabilities.
We strive to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA and to follow applicable U.S. accessibility standards, including Section 508 principles, in the design and ongoing development of this Service.
The interactive map relies on Google Maps, whose accessibility characteristics are partly governed by a third party. The survey can be completed without using the map — the town selector is the primary, fully accessible location input, and the map pin is always optional.
The Service is designed to work with current versions of major browsers and common assistive technologies, including screen readers and screen magnifiers. Performance may vary with older software.
If you encounter an accessibility barrier, we want to hear about it. Please reach out at access@safesouthcoast.com or through the Thraxios project channel associated with this application, describing the issue and the page or feature involved. We aim to respond promptly and to address barriers as part of our ongoing improvements.
Accessibility is treated as an ongoing process rather than a one-time task. We review and improve the Service as it evolves and as standards advance.
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