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In our expert (and completely non-biased) opinion, London is one of the best cities in the world. But even we can admit that the crime rates here aren’t great. Pickpockets here have got thievery down to an art, our bags aren’t even safe at the pub and our city is home to all 10 of the UK’s phone theft hotspots.
Of course, there are some areas of London that are worse for crime than others. The Met Police regularly updates its data on the rates of crime across the capital on an online recording system, and now we can reveal which boroughs had the highest and lowest rates in 2024.
By far, the highest crime rates were in Westminster. It saw 91,122 offences reported to the police last year, which is equivalent to 349.9 offences per 1,000 people living there. The most common crime reported was theft.
Although it has less than half the rate of Westminster, the second-most crime ridden borough last year was Camden, with 42,757 offences. That works out as 172.4 per 1,000 people.
Kensington and Chelsea was third with 145.7 reported crimes per 1,000 people, then it was Islington with 127.6 and Southwark with 122.7.
As you might expect, the further from the centre of London you go, the lower the rates of crime are, mostly. The lowest rates of crime last year were in Richmond-upon-Thames followed by, Kingston-upon-Thames and Sutton. They saw 60.7, 62.1 and 62.9 offences per 1,000 people, respectively.
The most commonly reported crime in both Richmond and Kingston was theft, closely followed by violence against a person. In Sutton, however, reports of violence against a person were one and a half times more than than reports of theft.
You can delve deeper into the levels of crime in each borough on the Met Police’s Connect system here.
Richmond is also London’s best place to live, according to science.
And this is apparently London’s safest borough to raise a family.
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