OpenCrime

Worst areas for shoplifting

City of London in Greater London has the highest recorded rate of shoplifting of the 306 local authority areas in England and Wales with a full year of data: 108.1 per 1,000 residents in the year to July 2026, against 7.8 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, Hartlepool comes top instead. On the resident measure, Westminster, Hartlepool and Kensington and Chelsea come next. The 100 highest are listed below.

108.1 shoplifting per 1,000 residents in City of London, the highest of 306 areas
7.8 per 1,000 across England and Wales
-0.6% national change on the previous 12 months
8.6% of all recorded crime is shoplifting

This ranks recorded crime, not danger. A high position means the police recorded more shoplifting 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 shoplifting

Ranked by recorded offences per 1,000 residents over the 12 months to July 2026, across 306 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 108.1 17.7 1,634 -1.3% 16.7%
2 Westminster Greater London 43.4 24.8 9,116 +26.1% 10.4%
3 Hartlepool County Durham 24.2 27.1 2,374 +6.4% 14.8%
4 Kensington and Chelsea Greater London 22.7 17.7 3,282 +15.6% 12.9%
5 Stockton-on-Tees County Durham 22.4 23.4 4,624 +136.0% 15.8%
6 Lincoln Lincolnshire 22.1 21.6 2,326 -3.5% 14.2%
7 Eastbourne East Sussex 21.5 22.0 2,241 -18.1% 15.6%
8 Dartford Kent 21.4 22.2 2,672 +21.9% 19.8%
9 Islington Greater London 19.1 18.2 4,262 +26.6% 10.4%
10 Middlesbrough North Yorkshire 19.0 20.0 2,964 +42.8% 10.2%
11 Hastings East Sussex 18.4 18.9 1,680 +29.7% 12.9%
12 Camden Greater London 18.4 13.9 3,981 +1.4% 8.5%
13 Nottingham Nottinghamshire 17.4 16.6 5,773 +4.0% 11.2%
14 Reading Berkshire 17.3 18.0 3,160 +16.3% 15.4%
15 North East Lincolnshire Lincolnshire 16.9 17.3 2,703 +33.7% 12.3%
16 Norwich Norfolk 16.8 16.3 2,467 -1.4% 13.4%
17 Cambridge Cambridgeshire 16.6 14.8 2,485 -11.1% 15.2%
18 Brighton and Hove East Sussex 16.5 16.7 4,696 -8.9% 13.4%
19 Ipswich Suffolk 16.4 16.6 2,303 +53.0% 16.5%
20 Worthing West Sussex 15.6 16.1 1,779 -1.8% 15.6%
21 Canterbury Kent 15.4 15.5 2,490 +6.8% 14.1%
22 Newcastle upon Tyne Tyne and Wear 15.1 15.0 4,828 +1.0% 12.6%
23 Crawley West Sussex 15.0 15.2 1,863 +8.0% 11.6%
24 Hammersmith and Fulham Greater London 14.8 13.9 2,788 +28.0% 10.6%
25 Kingston upon Hull East Riding of Yorkshire 14.1 14.5 3,869 +11.2% 10.2%
26 Portsmouth Hampshire 13.7 13.7 2,938 +2.0% 11.0%
27 Redcar and Cleveland North Yorkshire 13.6 14.9 1,891 -3.7% 10.0%
28 Solihull West Midlands 13.6 13.1 3,002 +7.1% 15.6%
29 Southampton Hampshire 13.5 14.4 3,505 -3.5% 10.3%
30 South Tyneside Tyne and Wear 13.4 14.7 2,023 -18.5% 12.8%
31 Bristol Bristol 13.3 13.5 6,592 +13.7% 9.0%
32 Worcester Worcestershire 13.2 13.5 1,407 +1.2% 11.8%
33 Burnley Lancashire 13.1 13.7 1,299 +44.3% 9.2%
34 Cardiff South Glamorgan 13.0 13.1 4,986 -5.7% 11.9%
35 North Tyneside Tyne and Wear 12.9 13.7 2,762 +10.8% 14.3%
36 Oxford Oxfordshire 12.7 11.7 2,112 -21.7% 11.9%
37 Doncaster South Yorkshire 12.6 13.2 4,020 +27.8% 9.5%
38 County Durham County Durham 12.3 13.2 6,610 +13.7% 10.3%
39 Mansfield Nottinghamshire 12.2 13.6 1,381 -6.2% 10.4%
40 Leeds West Yorkshire 12.0 12.2 10,171 -4.5% 9.6%
41 Sunderland Tyne and Wear 12.0 12.5 3,455 +5.7% 12.1%
42 Newport Gwent 11.9 12.5 2,004 -0.3% 8.8%
43 Wolverhampton West Midlands 11.8 12.8 3,316 +0.1% 12.0%
44 Gateshead Tyne and Wear 11.6 11.8 2,348 +3.8% 12.0%
45 Darlington County Durham 11.5 11.8 1,298 +17.0% 9.3%
46 Broxtowe Nottinghamshire 11.5 12.5 1,314 -6.1% 14.4%
47 Bassetlaw Nottinghamshire 11.5 12.3 1,431 -1.2% 11.9%
48 Walsall West Midlands 11.4 12.3 3,376 -14.7% 11.1%
49 Tower Hamlets Greater London 11.3 11.1 3,752 +39.9% 7.8%
50 Newham Greater London 11.3 12.7 4,224 -11.8% 8.3%
51 Lambeth Greater London 11.2 11.0 3,553 +16.5% 7.3%
52 Rotherham South Yorkshire 11.1 11.9 3,080 +55.0% 10.0%
53 Sheffield South Yorkshire 11.1 11.3 6,463 -2.7% 9.9%
54 Southend-on-Sea Essex 11.0 11.5 2,044 +15.2% 9.8%
55 Ashfield Nottinghamshire 10.9 11.2 1,409 -12.7% 10.9%
56 Boston Lincolnshire 10.8 11.2 765 -15.8% 9.7%
57 Lewisham Greater London 10.7 11.7 3,220 +64.1% 8.7%
58 Liverpool Merseyside 10.7 10.7 5,425 +19.2% 7.8%
59 Birmingham West Midlands 10.6 10.8 12,558 -5.2% 8.6%
60 Exeter Devon 10.6 9.9 1,467 -42.5% 9.8%
61 Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire 10.4 10.7 3,188 +0.4% 10.4%
62 Merthyr Tydfil Mid Glamorgan 10.4 10.5 614 -15.2% 9.6%
63 Derby Derbyshire 10.3 10.6 2,834 +2.4% 7.8%
64 Thurrock Essex 10.3 10.9 1,870 -12.7% 10.3%
65 Southwark Greater London 10.2 10.1 3,203 -16.5% 6.5%
66 Stevenage Hertfordshire 10.0 10.1 915 +22.2% 8.5%
67 Bath and North East Somerset Somerset 9.9 10.1 1,988 -6.2% 11.1%
68 Hillingdon Greater London 9.9 10.0 3,270 +12.4% 8.3%
69 Peterborough Cambridgeshire 9.9 10.0 2,219 +0.5% 8.0%
70 Hackney Greater London 9.9 10.2 2,635 +13.6% 6.7%
71 Torbay Devon 9.9 10.1 1,383 +10.2% 9.0%
72 Arun West Sussex 9.8 11.0 1,674 +2.0% 11.1%
73 North Lincolnshire Lincolnshire 9.8 9.8 1,686 +30.8% 10.3%
74 Sedgemoor Somerset 9.8 10.5 1,279 +8.6% 8.9%
75 Coventry West Midlands 9.6 10.4 3,545 -4.3% 9.9%
76 Chesterfield Derbyshire 9.6 9.4 1,016 +3.6% 7.9%
77 Sandwell West Midlands 9.6 10.1 3,379 +8.5% 9.4%
78 Wrexham Clwyd 9.5 9.8 1,319 +10.3% 9.4%
79 Nuneaton and Bedworth Warwickshire 9.4 10.7 1,331 +4.3% 8.7%
80 Brentwood Essex 9.4 9.6 742 +0.7% 12.6%
81 Torfaen Gwent 9.3 9.6 877 +14.9% 7.4%
82 Broxbourne Hertfordshire 9.3 10.2 946 +0.4% 9.9%
83 Haringey Greater London 9.3 9.9 2,442 +0.4% 7.0%
84 Somerset West and Taunton Somerset 9.3 9.3 1,509 +10.6% 9.8%
85 Warwick Warwickshire 9.2 9.0 1,426 +52.8% 10.9%
86 Greenwich Greater London 9.1 10.0 2,739 +3.2% 8.1%
87 Vale of Glamorgan South Glamorgan 9.1 9.6 1,239 +9.1% 12.7%
88 Kingston upon Thames Greater London 9.1 9.4 1,575 -2.4% 10.5%
89 Dudley West Midlands 9.0 9.7 2,999 -9.9% 11.3%
90 Stoke-on-Trent Staffordshire 9.0 9.3 2,428 -5.9% 6.5%
91 Bedford Bedfordshire 8.9 9.5 1,738 -11.9% 9.5%
92 Erewash Derbyshire 8.9 9.7 1,015 +5.0% 9.8%
93 Leicester Leicestershire 8.9 9.2 3,437 -11.4% 7.2%
94 Cherwell Oxfordshire 8.7 9.2 1,490 -6.7% 12.2%
95 Croydon Greater London 8.7 9.9 3,575 -3.0% 8.4%
96 Wakefield West Yorkshire 8.7 9.0 3,204 -11.3% 7.4%
97 Newark and Sherwood Nottinghamshire 8.7 9.0 1,111 -27.8% 10.3%
98 Colchester Essex 8.6 8.9 1,721 +13.8% 9.1%
99 Chelmsford Essex 8.6 8.7 1,616 +13.7% 10.3%
100 Denbighshire Clwyd 8.6 8.6 840 -14.1% 7.6%

The table stops at 100, by which point the rate has fallen from 108.1 per 1,000 to 8.6. The other 206 areas carry the same figure for shoplifting on their own pages: search for a place by name, or see all 306 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 shoplifting

The Home Office publishes this as a single category, Shoplifting, covering theft from shops and stalls. It concentrates where the shops are, which is why retail districts sit at the top whatever their residents do. It is what most people mean by retail theft.

Across England and Wales, police recorded 484,359 of them in the year to July 2026: 8.6% of all recorded crime, 0.6% down on the year before.

Areas are local authority districts, the level England and Wales actually publishes boundaries and populations for. A further 24 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 9 of the 13 categories, and between them the 13 are led by only 4 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 City of London 99.3 32.4 35.5%
Anti-social behaviour Westminster 64.2 14.5 15.9%
Shoplifting (this page) City of London 108.1 7.8 8.6%
Criminal damage City of London 19.8 6.4 7.0%
Public order City of London 41.6 6.3 6.9%
Other theft City of London 158.5 6.1 6.6%
Vehicle crime Kensington and Chelsea 14.4 4.7 5.1%
Burglary City of London 31.4 3.3 3.7%
Drug offences City of London 30.5 3.1 3.4%
Theft from the person Westminster 85.0 1.6 1.8%
Robbery City of London 20.2 1.3 1.4%
Weapons Crawley 6.1 0.9 1.0%
Bicycle theft City of London 24.1 0.8 0.9%

Rates are per 1,000 residents over the 12 months to July 2026, across the same 306 areas. For crime as a whole rather than one category, see highest crime rates and safest places to live.