Caerphilly vs Monmouthshire

Monmouthshire records less crime for its size than Caerphilly: 79.5 offences per 1,000 residents in the 12 months to July 2026, against 106.0. That is about 33% more. Both figures are averages across a whole local authority, and neither area is uniform: the gap between neighbourhoods inside one of these places is usually wider than the gap between the two of them.

Caerphilly 106.0 crimes per 1,000 residents, Gwent
Monmouthshire 79.5 crimes per 1,000 residents, Gwent

The England and Wales average is 91.2 recorded crimes per 1,000 residents. Caerphilly is about 16% above it. Monmouthshire is about 13% below it.

Side by side

Recorded crime in Caerphilly and Monmouthshire
  Caerphilly Monmouthshire
Crimes per 1,000 residents 106.0 79.5
Offences in the year to July 2026 18,746 7,550
Residents 176,865 94,930
Change on the previous 12 months +0.7% +3.7%
Rank in England and Wales 85 of 306 182 of 306

Rank 1 is the highest recorded rate. Both areas are local authority areas, so the two populations are counted the same way and the rates are directly comparable.

Offence by offence

The mix differs more than the totals do. Caerphilly records about 2.5 times as much vehicle crime, 1.8 times as much drugs and 1.7 times as much possession of weapons per resident. Monmouthshire records about 2.6 times as much shoplifting per resident.

Rate per 1,000 residents by offence
Offence, per 1,000 residents Caerphilly Monmouthshire
Violence and sexual offences 40.9 27.5
Anti-social behaviour 19.6 14.0
Public order 10.6 8.7
Criminal damage and arson 11.0 7.4
Other theft 4.4 5.6
Vehicle crime 5.7 2.3
Shoplifting 2.5 6.6
Burglary 3.8 2.8
Other crime 2.7 1.8
Drugs 2.8 1.5
Possession of weapons 1.2 0.7
Robbery 0.5 0.4
Bicycle theft 0.2 0.2
Theft from the person 0.1 0.1
All recorded crime 106.0 79.5

Both places since 2011

Each line is a rolling twelve-month rate per 1,000 residents, so seasonality is taken out and the two areas are on the same scale despite their different sizes.

Caerphilly Monmouthshire
3060901200Covid lockdown106 Caerphilly80 Monmouthsh2012201420162018202020222024Jul 2026
A line breaks wherever the twelve months behind it include a return the force never filed, because a twelve-month total missing three of its months is not a total.

Questions

Is Caerphilly safer than Monmouthshire?

Monmouthshire records less crime for its size than Caerphilly: 79.5 offences per 1,000 residents in the 12 months to July 2026, against 106.0. That is about 33% more. Both figures are averages across a whole local authority, and neither area is uniform: the gap between neighbourhoods inside one of these places is usually wider than the gap between the two of them.

What does this comparison not tell you?

Recorded crime counts what the police wrote down, so a place where people report more looks worse than a place where they report less, whatever actually happened. Both figures are averages across a whole local authority: a town with one busy centre and quiet suburbs carries a rate that describes neither. And the denominator is residents, so somewhere that fills up with commuters, students or shoppers by day records crime against a population it is not credited with. How the figures work sets all of this out.

Where else can I compare?

Pick any other two areas, or start from Caerphilly or Monmouthshire and use the neighbouring areas listed on each. The ranked lists of the safest places and the highest crime rates cover all of them at once.

Figures cover the 12 months to July 2026. Police data is published roughly two months in arrears.