OpenCrime

Worst areas for theft from the person

Westminster in Greater London has the highest recorded rate of theft from the person of the 306 local authority areas in England and Wales with a full year of data: 85.0 per 1,000 residents in the year to July 2026, against 1.6 nationally. The spread is wide: the top of the table records 2,832 times the rate of the bottom. The next highest are City of London, Camden and Southwark. The 100 highest are listed below.

85.0 theft from the person per 1,000 residents in Westminster, the highest of 306 areas
1.6 per 1,000 across England and Wales
-21.1% national change on the previous 12 months
1.8% of all recorded crime is theft from the person

This ranks recorded crime, not danger. A high position means the police recorded more theft from the person 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 theft from the person

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 Westminster Greater London 85.0 48.6 17,843 -40.9% 20.4%
2 City of London Greater London 84.2 13.8 1,272 -30.3% 13.0%
3 Camden Greater London 29.3 22.1 6,349 -29.1% 13.6%
4 Southwark Greater London 22.4 22.2 7,037 +1.3% 14.4%
5 Islington Greater London 16.2 15.4 3,621 -16.2% 8.8%
6 Lambeth Greater London 15.8 15.6 5,018 -9.5% 10.3%
7 Hackney Greater London 15.4 15.9 4,101 -12.3% 10.5%
8 Kensington and Chelsea Greater London 11.8 9.2 1,707 -31.9% 6.7%
9 Newham Greater London 10.5 11.9 3,942 -8.9% 7.8%
10 Tower Hamlets Greater London 8.4 8.3 2,798 -9.7% 5.8%
11 Haringey Greater London 7.5 8.0 1,970 -26.8% 5.6%
12 Brent Greater London 5.7 6.2 2,015 -17.0% 4.7%
13 Hammersmith and Fulham Greater London 4.6 4.3 872 -34.1% 3.3%
14 Waltham Forest Greater London 4.5 4.9 1,267 -31.5% 4.3%
15 Lewisham Greater London 4.0 4.4 1,216 -24.6% 3.3%
16 Enfield Greater London 3.7 3.8 1,218 -18.9% 3.3%
17 Redbridge Greater London 3.6 4.0 1,154 -16.0% 3.8%
18 Harrow Greater London 3.6 4.1 968 -20.0% 4.4%
19 Wandsworth Greater London 3.5 3.6 1,192 -23.5% 3.6%
20 Barking and Dagenham Greater London 3.3 3.8 763 +1.5% 3.1%
21 Ealing Greater London 3.2 3.5 1,229 -13.5% 2.8%
22 Hounslow Greater London 3.1 3.3 917 -14.1% 2.8%
23 Hillingdon Greater London 3.0 3.0 982 -16.1% 2.5%
24 Greenwich Greater London 2.7 3.0 814 -27.4% 2.4%
25 Barnet Greater London 2.4 2.5 950 -12.0% 2.5%
26 Kingston upon Thames Greater London 2.3 2.4 403 -17.8% 2.7%
27 Cambridge Cambridgeshire 2.2 2.0 330 -11.3% 2.0%
28 Nottingham Nottinghamshire 2.1 2.0 694 +18.2% 1.4%
29 Oxford Oxfordshire 2.0 1.9 339 -34.1% 1.9%
30 Croydon Greater London 2.0 2.2 806 -10.9% 1.9%
31 Bromley Greater London 1.7 1.8 580 -13.8% 2.0%
32 Watford Hertfordshire 1.7 1.8 184 -9.8% 1.6%
33 Havering Greater London 1.6 1.8 448 -3.7% 1.8%
34 Brighton and Hove East Sussex 1.5 1.5 424 -14.9% 1.2%
35 Newcastle upon Tyne Tyne and Wear 1.5 1.5 470 -1.3% 1.2%
36 Birmingham West Midlands 1.5 1.5 1,714 +16.4% 1.2%
37 Merton Greater London 1.4 1.5 314 -24.7% 1.9%
38 Reading Berkshire 1.4 1.5 254 -35.4% 1.2%
39 Richmond upon Thames Greater London 1.3 1.3 251 -23.5% 1.7%
40 Leeds West Yorkshire 1.3 1.3 1,062 -11.1% 1.0%
41 Leicester Leicestershire 1.3 1.3 491 -6.3% 1.0%
42 Liverpool Merseyside 1.2 1.2 608 -6.0% 0.9%
43 Sutton Greater London 1.2 1.2 248 +2.5% 1.5%
44 Derby Derbyshire 1.1 1.2 309 +5.1% 0.9%
45 Blackpool Lancashire 1.1 1.1 161 -22.6% 0.6%
46 Slough Berkshire 1.1 1.2 183 -25.9% 1.1%
47 Crawley West Sussex 1.1 1.1 131 -24.7% 0.8%
48 Norwich Norfolk 1.0 1.0 151 -12.2% 0.8%
49 Luton Bedfordshire 1.0 1.1 243 -2.0% 1.1%
50 Broxbourne Hertfordshire 1.0 1.1 103 -14.2% 1.1%
51 Chesterfield Derbyshire 1.0 0.9 101 +40.3% 0.8%
52 Bexley Greater London 0.9 1.0 238 -21.5% 1.2%
53 Bradford West Yorkshire 0.9 1.0 516 -12.7% 0.7%
54 Coventry West Midlands 0.9 1.0 335 -0.3% 0.9%
55 Peterborough Cambridgeshire 0.9 0.9 203 -13.3% 0.7%
56 Cardiff South Glamorgan 0.9 0.9 346 -17.6% 0.8%
57 Bristol Bristol 0.9 0.9 430 +54.1% 0.6%
58 Southampton Hampshire 0.9 0.9 222 -29.3% 0.7%
59 Torbay Devon 0.9 0.9 121 -7.6% 0.8%
60 Middlesbrough North Yorkshire 0.9 0.9 132 +17.9% 0.5%
61 Sheffield South Yorkshire 0.8 0.9 490 -25.3% 0.8%
62 Eastbourne East Sussex 0.8 0.9 87 -11.2% 0.6%
63 Harlow Essex 0.8 0.9 82 -14.6% 0.8%
64 Portsmouth Hampshire 0.8 0.8 177 -7.8% 0.7%
65 Stevenage Hertfordshire 0.8 0.8 76 -15.6% 0.7%
66 Wolverhampton West Midlands 0.8 0.9 224 -10.8% 0.8%
67 Eden Cumbria 0.8 0.8 44 +131.6% 1.3%
68 Exeter Devon 0.8 0.7 107 -1.8% 0.7%
69 Southend-on-Sea Essex 0.8 0.8 142 +1.4% 0.7%
70 Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire 0.8 0.8 234 +7.3% 0.8%
71 Great Yarmouth Norfolk 0.8 0.8 75 -13.8% 0.7%
72 Uttlesford Essex 0.7 0.7 70 -17.7% 1.2%
73 Windsor and Maidenhead Berkshire 0.7 0.7 117 -31.2% 1.1%
74 Gateshead Tyne and Wear 0.7 0.7 143 +10.0% 0.7%
75 Hertsmere Hertfordshire 0.7 0.7 78 -19.6% 0.8%
76 Plymouth Devon 0.7 0.7 192 -17.6% 0.7%
77 Dartford Kent 0.7 0.7 88 -25.4% 0.7%
78 Spelthorne Surrey 0.7 0.8 73 -8.8% 0.8%
79 St Albans Hertfordshire 0.7 0.6 99 +12.5% 0.8%
80 Preston Lancashire 0.7 0.7 106 +8.2% 0.5%
81 Sandwell West Midlands 0.6 0.7 226 -5.8% 0.6%
82 Wakefield West Yorkshire 0.6 0.6 230 -14.5% 0.5%
83 Walsall West Midlands 0.6 0.7 187 +14.0% 0.6%
84 Welwyn Hatfield Hertfordshire 0.6 0.6 77 -45.8% 0.6%
85 Kingston upon Hull East Riding of Yorkshire 0.6 0.6 171 -24.0% 0.5%
86 Thurrock Essex 0.6 0.7 113 -11.0% 0.6%
87 Burnley Lancashire 0.6 0.6 61 +17.3% 0.4%
88 Chelmsford Essex 0.6 0.6 116 -18.9% 0.7%
89 Dacorum Hertfordshire 0.6 0.6 99 -10.0% 0.7%
90 Ipswich Suffolk 0.6 0.6 85 -18.3% 0.6%
91 Mansfield Nottinghamshire 0.6 0.7 68 -16.1% 0.5%
92 Hyndburn Lancashire 0.6 0.6 50 +85.2% 0.5%
93 Colchester Essex 0.6 0.6 112 -8.2% 0.6%
94 Hastings East Sussex 0.6 0.6 51 -8.9% 0.4%
95 Basildon Essex 0.6 0.6 107 +4.9% 0.6%
96 Bedford Bedfordshire 0.6 0.6 107 +4.9% 0.6%
97 Calderdale West Yorkshire 0.6 0.6 116 -24.7% 0.5%
98 Epsom and Ewell Surrey 0.6 0.6 46 -30.3% 0.7%
99 North West Leicestershire Leicestershire 0.5 0.5 60 +15.4% 0.8%
100 Merthyr Tydfil Mid Glamorgan 0.5 0.5 31 -3.1% 0.5%

The table stops at 100, by which point the rate has fallen from 85.0 per 1,000 to 0.5. The other 206 areas carry the same figure for theft from the person 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, Westminster and City of London 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 theft from the person

The Home Office publishes this as a single category, Theft from the person, covering items taken from a person without force. Force would make it robbery, which is counted separately. It is what most people mean by pickpocketing and bag snatching.

Across England and Wales, police recorded 99,217 of them in the year to July 2026: 1.8% of all recorded crime, 21.1% 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 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 (this page) 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.