OpenCrime

Most violent areas in England and Wales

City of London in Greater London has the highest recorded rate of violence and sexual offences of the 314 local authority areas in England and Wales with a full year of data: 100.3 per 1,000 residents in the year to June 2026, against 32.4 nationally. It has 15,111 residents and 92,154 people in it on a working day, so that rate divides a city centre's crime by a village's population. Measured against the people actually there on a weekday, Blackpool comes top instead. On the resident measure, Blackpool, Westminster and Middlesbrough come next. The 100 highest are listed below.

100.3 violence and sexual offences per 1,000 residents in City of London, the highest of 314 areas
32.4 per 1,000 across England and Wales
+1.7% national change on the previous 12 months
35.5% of all recorded crime is violence and sexual offences

This ranks recorded crime, not danger. A high position means the police recorded more violence and sexual offences per resident, which is not the same as a place being more dangerous to be in. Somewhere people report readily looks worse than somewhere people do not, and a district that fills with visitors carries their crime against the few who live there.

The 100 worst areas for violence and sexual offences

Ranked by recorded offences per 1,000 residents over the 12 months to June 2026, across 314 local authority areas: cities, towns and rural districts alike.

# Area County Per 1,000 Per 1,000 workday Offences Year on year Share of its crime
1 City of London Greater London 100.3 16.4 1,515 -15.4% 15.2%
2 Blackpool Lancashire 76.4 77.0 11,017 +1.1% 40.7%
3 Westminster Greater London 61.2 34.9 12,844 -0.3% 14.5%
4 Middlesbrough North Yorkshire 60.0 63.2 9,370 +2.2% 32.3%
5 Kingston upon Hull East Riding of Yorkshire 55.7 57.4 15,351 -0.3% 40.4%
6 Bradford West Yorkshire 55.6 57.8 31,358 -6.0% 42.8%
7 Derby Derbyshire 54.0 55.3 14,799 +5.4% 40.7%
8 Hartlepool County Durham 53.9 60.4 5,294 +2.2% 33.1%
9 Southampton Hampshire 53.8 57.3 13,945 +4.1% 41.2%
10 Birmingham West Midlands 52.5 53.3 62,138 +2.5% 42.6%
11 Portsmouth Hampshire 51.5 51.6 11,038 +0.8% 41.6%
12 Bristol Bristol 51.3 52.1 25,353 +5.1% 34.8%
13 Stoke-on-Trent Staffordshire 51.1 52.7 13,819 +5.9% 37.0%
14 Blaenau Gwent Gwent 51.0 57.3 3,462 -2.5% 35.4%
15 North East Lincolnshire Lincolnshire 51.0 52.2 8,151 -4.9% 37.2%
16 Lincoln Lincolnshire 50.9 49.7 5,352 -2.7% 32.9%
17 Wakefield West Yorkshire 50.8 52.4 18,667 -5.4% 43.1%
18 Liverpool Merseyside 49.8 49.9 25,364 +2.7% 36.8%
19 Calderdale West Yorkshire 49.5 51.2 10,447 -5.1% 42.2%
20 Chesterfield Derbyshire 49.4 48.6 5,243 +1.7% 41.4%
21 Nottingham Nottinghamshire 49.2 46.9 16,273 +10.6% 31.8%
22 Burnley Lancashire 49.1 51.3 4,876 +13.3% 34.7%
23 Leeds West Yorkshire 48.7 49.4 41,138 -3.3% 38.5%
24 Hyndburn Lancashire 48.7 53.5 4,188 +9.2% 38.1%
25 Plymouth Devon 48.3 49.5 13,141 +7.3% 44.3%
26 Denbighshire Clwyd 48.2 48.5 4,732 -2.0% 43.2%
27 Great Yarmouth Norfolk 47.8 49.7 4,807 -0.2% 43.3%
28 Torbay Devon 47.4 48.6 6,638 +11.2% 43.5%
29 Southend-on-Sea Essex 47.4 49.5 8,773 +10.1% 42.3%
30 Barrow-in-Furness Cumbria 47.2 47.1 3,211 -0.5% 46.6%
31 Stockton-on-Tees County Durham 47.0 49.3 9,728 +14.2% 33.8%
32 Sedgemoor Somerset 46.8 50.4 6,112 +0.6% 43.0%
33 Peterborough Cambridgeshire 46.8 47.3 10,466 +0.2% 37.6%
34 Thanet Kent 46.6 48.8 6,642 -9.0% 40.1%
35 Doncaster South Yorkshire 46.1 48.4 14,734 +0.4% 34.8%
36 Norwich Norfolk 45.9 44.7 6,753 +2.3% 36.8%
37 Newport Gwent 45.8 47.8 7,683 +0.8% 34.3%
38 Stevenage Hertfordshire 45.7 46.4 4,195 +16.5% 39.3%
39 Preston Lancashire 45.1 46.9 7,351 +7.2% 34.7%
40 Sandwell West Midlands 44.9 47.5 15,894 +2.4% 44.3%
41 Torfaen Gwent 44.7 46.0 4,210 -4.0% 36.1%
42 Scarborough North Yorkshire 44.3 45.3 4,887 +9.8% 36.0%
43 Hastings East Sussex 44.1 45.1 4,023 -0.5% 31.7%
44 Exeter Devon 43.9 41.1 6,075 +9.2% 40.5%
45 Redcar and Cleveland North Yorkshire 43.9 48.0 6,109 +5.8% 32.0%
46 Conwy Clwyd 43.7 45.4 5,024 -0.6% 41.4%
47 Leicester Leicestershire 43.7 45.5 16,972 -3.6% 35.7%
48 Wolverhampton West Midlands 43.4 47.3 12,200 -1.9% 44.2%
49 Tendring Essex 43.1 47.8 6,761 +4.0% 46.7%
50 Pembrokeshire Dyfed 43.1 44.4 5,422 -1.3% 48.0%
51 Blackburn with Darwen Lancashire 42.3 43.0 6,869 +6.3% 37.8%
52 Harlow Essex 42.2 46.0 4,146 +4.6% 39.6%
53 Mansfield Nottinghamshire 42.1 46.9 4,758 +5.8% 36.4%
54 Kirklees West Yorkshire 41.9 44.9 18,757 -6.5% 42.6%
55 Carlisle Cumbria 41.8 43.3 4,796 -2.0% 44.4%
56 Worcester Worcestershire 41.5 42.4 4,423 +3.5% 37.5%
57 Eastbourne East Sussex 41.4 42.4 4,321 +1.9% 30.5%
58 Crawley West Sussex 41.3 41.7 5,126 -3.5% 31.9%
59 Walsall West Midlands 41.1 44.4 12,150 +6.4% 40.5%
60 Somerset West and Taunton Somerset 41.0 41.1 6,687 +3.6% 43.8%
61 Halton Cheshire 40.8 42.5 5,367 -9.8% 45.3%
62 Caerphilly Gwent 40.8 43.3 7,215 +0.9% 38.9%
63 Merthyr Tydfil Mid Glamorgan 40.7 41.0 2,401 +4.4% 38.0%
64 Havant Hampshire 40.7 44.3 5,168 +7.1% 47.4%
65 Ipswich Suffolk 40.5 40.8 5,674 +1.6% 40.5%
66 Rotherham South Yorkshire 40.5 43.1 11,188 +7.0% 36.5%
67 Colchester Essex 40.4 41.8 8,078 +3.6% 43.5%
68 Slough Berkshire 40.1 42.5 6,707 +5.7% 38.9%
69 Boston Lincolnshire 40.1 41.7 2,848 +2.6% 35.9%
70 County Durham County Durham 40.1 42.9 21,559 +7.6% 34.0%
71 St. Helens Merseyside 39.9 44.0 7,535 +2.1% 42.3%
72 Reading Berkshire 39.9 41.6 7,291 +10.1% 35.7%
73 Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire 39.6 40.7 12,108 +1.9% 39.2%
74 Coventry West Midlands 39.4 42.8 14,533 -1.8% 41.2%
75 Basildon Essex 39.3 40.4 7,601 +7.4% 40.0%
76 Islington Greater London 39.2 37.3 8,743 +9.4% 21.5%
77 Carmarthenshire Dyfed 39.2 40.7 7,473 +0.2% 45.5%
78 Darlington County Durham 39.0 39.9 4,381 +0.3% 31.8%
79 Barnsley South Yorkshire 38.7 41.9 9,749 +1.0% 36.2%
80 Camden Greater London 38.3 28.9 8,305 +10.8% 17.6%
81 Telford and Wrekin Shropshire 38.2 39.9 7,481 +5.7% 43.0%
82 Rhondda Cynon Taf Mid Glamorgan 38.0 40.9 9,215 +2.2% 45.0%
83 Wrexham Clwyd 37.8 38.9 5,221 -7.8% 37.6%
84 Medway Kent 37.6 41.8 11,003 -10.3% 36.9%
85 Knowsley Merseyside 37.6 39.4 6,108 +2.1% 40.4%
86 Erewash Derbyshire 37.4 40.7 4,275 +4.0% 41.3%
87 Watford Hertfordshire 37.4 38.8 4,008 +14.2% 33.9%
88 North Lincolnshire Lincolnshire 37.3 37.3 6,396 -1.5% 39.5%
89 Cannock Chase Staffordshire 37.3 40.0 3,884 +9.9% 44.2%
90 Isle of Wight Isle of Wight 37.3 37.9 5,286 -6.4% 45.1%
91 Fenland Cambridgeshire 37.2 39.5 3,906 +4.9% 40.5%
92 Sheffield South Yorkshire 37.1 37.9 21,610 +4.5% 33.0%
93 East Lindsey Lincolnshire 37.0 38.7 5,377 +5.8% 38.7%
94 Gosport Hampshire 36.9 41.7 3,062 -8.8% 46.2%
95 Pendle Lancashire 36.5 39.6 3,643 +7.8% 38.3%
96 Lewisham Greater London 36.5 39.9 10,985 +10.0% 29.9%
97 Newcastle-under-Lyme Staffordshire 36.5 39.8 4,657 +18.2% 41.7%
98 Canterbury Kent 36.3 36.7 5,886 -1.3% 33.2%
99 Nuneaton and Bedworth Warwickshire 36.2 41.3 5,125 +5.6% 33.7%
100 Redditch Worcestershire 36.1 37.5 3,175 +8.4% 42.3%

The table stops at 100, by which point the rate has fallen from 100.3 per 1,000 to 36.1. The other 214 areas carry the same figure for violence and sexual offences on their own pages: search for a place by name, or see all 314 areas ranked by overall crime.

The first rate divides recorded offences by resident population, which is what the Office for National Statistics publishes. The second divides the same offences by the Census 2021 working-day population, which counts the people who are actually there on a weekday rather than the ones who sleep there. In this top ten, City of London and Westminster each fall by more than a third once the same offences are divided by the working-day population instead of the resident one, which is the signature of a place that fills up by day and empties at night.

The last column is this category's share of all crime recorded in that same area. A high rate with an ordinary share is a busy place; a high rate with an unusually high share is a place with a particular problem, and the two are worth telling apart.

What counts as violence and sexual offences

The Home Office publishes this as a single category, Violence and sexual offences, covering offences against the person, from common assault through to grievous bodily harm, together with sexual offences. It is one category in the published data and cannot be split into its parts here. It is what most people mean by violent crime.

Across England and Wales, police recorded 2,001,075 of them in the year to June 2026: 35.5% of all recorded crime, 1.7% up on the year before.

Areas are local authority districts, the level England and Wales actually publishes boundaries and populations for. A further 16 districts are left out because their police force has not filed a full year of returns; shown with a partial year, they would sit near the bottom of the table looking safe. How the figures work sets out the method, data sources lists where the numbers come from.

Where each offence peaks

City of London tops 8 of the 13 categories, and between them the 13 are led by only 5 different areas. That is what dividing by residents does: a place whose daytime crowds dwarf the people who live there wins almost everything, whatever the offence. Ordered by how much of all recorded crime each one accounts for, so the largest categories come first.

Offence Led by Rate there England and Wales Share of all crime
Violence (this page) City of London 100.3 32.4 35.5%
Anti-social behaviour Westminster 64.5 14.5 15.9%
Shoplifting City of London 112.1 7.7 8.5%
Criminal damage Middlesbrough 20.0 6.5 7.1%
Public order City of London 43.2 6.3 6.9%
Other theft City of London 160.3 6.0 6.6%
Vehicle crime Kensington and Chelsea 14.6 4.7 5.1%
Burglary City of London 31.6 3.3 3.7%
Drug offences City of London 31.7 3.2 3.5%
Theft from the person Westminster 89.0 1.6 1.8%
Robbery City of London 20.4 1.3 1.4%
Weapons Crawley 6.1 0.9 1.0%
Bicycle theft City of London 23.0 0.8 0.9%

Rates are per 1,000 residents over the 12 months to June 2026, across the same 314 areas. For crime as a whole rather than one category, see highest crime rates and safest places to live.