Caerphilly vs Torfaen

Caerphilly records less crime for its size than Torfaen: 106.0 offences per 1,000 residents in the 12 months to July 2026, against 125.3. That is about 18% 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
Torfaen 125.3 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. Torfaen is about 37% above it.

Side by side

Recorded crime in Caerphilly and Torfaen
  Caerphilly Torfaen
Crimes per 1,000 residents 106.0 125.3
Offences in the year to July 2026 18,746 11,796
Residents 176,865 94,119
Change on the previous 12 months +0.7% +4.0%
Rank in England and Wales 85 of 306 38 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 1.4 times as much vehicle crime per resident. Torfaen records about 3.7 times as much shoplifting per resident.

Rate per 1,000 residents by offence
Offence, per 1,000 residents Caerphilly Torfaen
Violence and sexual offences 40.9 44.9
Anti-social behaviour 19.6 23.2
Criminal damage and arson 11.0 12.8
Public order 10.6 12.7
Vehicle crime 5.7 4.0
Shoplifting 2.5 9.3
Other theft 4.4 5.9
Burglary 3.8 4.2
Other crime 2.7 3.4
Drugs 2.8 2.7
Possession of weapons 1.2 1.1
Robbery 0.5 0.7
Bicycle theft 0.2 0.3
Theft from the person 0.1 0.2
All recorded crime 106.0 125.3

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 Torfaen
40801201600Covid lockdown106 Caerphilly125 Torfaen2012201420162018202020222024Jul 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 Torfaen?

Caerphilly records less crime for its size than Torfaen: 106.0 offences per 1,000 residents in the 12 months to July 2026, against 125.3. That is about 18% 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 Torfaen 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.