Crime in South East

The safest and worst parts of South East

The safest part of South East is Oxfordshire, with 67.1 recorded crimes per 1,000 residents, about 26% below the England and Wales average. At the other end, East Sussex recorded 100.3 per 1,000, about 10% above the national rate.

Counties inside South East, by recorded crimes per 1,000 residents in the year to June 2026, shaded against the England and Wales average.

Neighbourhoods here are Middle Layer Super Output Areas of around 7,000 residents. Each figure is an average over the whole neighbourhood, and the ones holding a town centre run high wherever daily visitors outnumber residents. How the figures work explains why these areas are used rather than electoral wards.

By type of offence

Recorded offences in the 12 months to June 2026, with the change on the 12 months before.

Set against the national mix of offences, theft from the person makes up well under its national share of recorded crime in South East.

Home Office recorded crime, data.police.uk. Rates use ONS mid-2024 population estimates (9,642,942 residents). Categories are the Home Office crime types as published; they are not comparable with court or conviction figures.

What happened to those crimes

Police recorded 661,478 offences other than anti-social behaviour in South East in the year to June 2026. By the time this data was published, about 36% had been closed with no suspect identified and 36% closed because a prosecution was not possible or not pursued. Around 14% had led to a charge, caution or other formal action, and 14% were still open.

The widest shortfall against the national picture is for possession of weapons: 33.3% of cases here ended in a charge or other formal action, against 34.3% across England and Wales.

Outcomes describe where each investigation stood when the data was published, so recent offences are naturally still open and the closed shares will edge up as cases conclude. Anti-social behaviour is left out entirely: police record no outcomes for it, and counting it would quietly flatter every percentage here. "Formal action" spans charges, summonses, cautions, penalty notices and community resolutions.

Outcomes by offence in South East

The share of cases ending in a charge, caution or other formal action, against the same figure for England and Wales. Offences with fewer than 30 recorded cases here are left out: a percentage of twelve cases moves several points on one decision.

"Charged or dealt with" counts every outcome that is a formal action: charged, summonsed, cautioned, penalty notice, community resolution. Anti-social behaviour is excluded from both columns because it carries no outcome by design. A low rate is not necessarily a failing of the force here: some offences are far harder to detect anywhere, which is why every row is shown against the national figure for the same offence rather than against the other rows.

Over time

Recorded crime in South East peaked at 882,194 offences in 2011; the latest 12 months, at 782,841, are about 11% below that peak. That works out at roughly 2,145 a day.

Download every month as CSV, including which months each force filed.

Compared with nearby areas

Counties in South East

• Berkshire
• Buckinghamshire
• East Sussex
• Hampshire
• Isle of Wight
• Kent
• Oxfordshire
• Surrey
• West Sussex

Against the rest of the country

In the national table, where 1st is the highest recorded crime rate, South East was 7th of 9 in December 2010 and is 6th of 9 today.

Time of year

Recorded crime here peaks in July, about 27% above its quietest month, February.

Crime in context

How tightly packed it is

506 people per square kilometre, across 19,072 km². England and Wales averages about 400 people per square kilometre. Density is the usual explanation for a high position in the national crime table: a rate divides the crime of everyone who passes through by the number who sleep there.

What a home costs

The median home sold in South East in 2025 went for £385,000, across 129,696 sales, up 1.3% on 2024.

The night-time economy

South East had 30,514 premises licensed to sell alcohol, 31.6 per 10,000 residents, against 35.9 per 10,000 across England and Wales on the same count. A concentration of licensed premises is the other half of why compact centres sit high in the national crime table: much recorded violence and public order happens where the night-time economy is, and it is counted against the people who live there rather than the people who go there.

Licensed premises are as at 31 March 2022, the last count the Home Office published by licensing authority; it has reported national totals only since, and a pub estate changes slowly enough for the count to stay worth carrying. The date is shown so nobody reads it as current. Nothing in this section causes anything on this page: a correlation is not a cause.

When searches happen in South East

Of the 152,825 searches in South East that could be placed and timed from July 2023 to June 2026, the busiest hour was 11pm and the quietest 6am. 29% of them fell between 10pm and 4am, which is about the national share of 29%.

South East England and Wales, for comparison. Both drawn as each one's own share of its searches, so a small area and the country can be put side by side.

Counted on the hour the search happened, in local time. Only searches carrying coordinates can be placed, which is roughly seven in eight, so the number above is smaller than this area's true total and is a sample of it rather than a count. Three years are used rather than one because a single year of one area is too thin to show a shape. Forces filing a date with no time are excluded entirely. Stop and search by time of day sets out the national picture and the method.

Questions

Is South East safe?

In the year to June 2026, the recorded crime rate in South East was 81.2 per 1,000 residents. That is 11% lower than the England and Wales average. A recorded crime rate measures what the police recorded, across a whole region. It says nothing about any particular street, and areas with busy town centres, shopping areas or nightlife record more crime per resident because far more people are present than live there.

What are the worst areas of South East for crime?

Going by recorded crime rates in the year to June 2026, the highest are in East Sussex (100.3 per 1,000), Kent (91.2 per 1,000) and Isle of Wight (82.8 per 1,000). The top of the list usually marks the town centre, where daily visitors outnumber residents many times over.

What are the safest areas of South East?

The lowest recorded crime rates in South East are in Oxfordshire (67.1 per 1,000), Surrey (70.3 per 1,000) and Buckinghamshire (75.8 per 1,000). Full figures for every neighbourhood are in the table above.

Is crime in South East going up or down?

In South East, the latest 12 months are almost level with the 12 before. Over the full series, recorded crime here peaked at 882,194 offences in 2011 and the current total is about 11% below it.

What is the most common crime in South East?

The most commonly recorded offence in South East is violence and sexual offences, with 290,393 offences in the 12 months to June 2026 (37% of all recorded crime). The next most common is anti-social behaviour, with 121,363.

Where does this come from?

Police recorded crime open data, published at data.police.uk by the Home Office under the Open Government Licence. It covers offences the police recorded, which is not the same as offences committed: crimes that are never reported never appear. Rates use ONS mid-2024 population estimates. How the figures work sets out the calculation, the reporting lag and every known gap.