A new crime map has revealed that Bristol is one of the 10 most dangerous places to live in England and Wales. The 43 domestic police forces in England and Wales recorded more than five million non-fraud crimes in the year ending September 2024.
That includes 163,882 crimes recorded by Avon and Somerset Police. Each police force area is split into smaller community safety partnership areas, which broadly match local authority areas.
Crime rates – the number of crimes in each area for every 1,000 people living there – allow for a fairer comparison of the threats to law and order in places with widely different population sizes. They show that Bristol has the 10th highest crime rate of more than 300 community safety partnership areas in England and Wales and the highest in Avon and Somerset.
In the year to September, there were 130 offences for every 1,000 people living in Bristol. That’s the equivalent of one crime report for every eight people.
North Somerset has the next highest crime rate in Avon and Somerset with 81 crimes per 1,000 people. South Gloucestershire, however, is the safest area to live in Avon and Somerset, with a rate of 70 crimes per 1,000 population, or one crime for every 14 people.
You can see how it compares to where you live using our interactive map, which uses Home Office data:
Predictably, the Met Police – responsible for law and order in London, the nation’s capital and biggest city – had the largest caseload, with 944,000 million crime reports, followed by West Midlands Police (321,000), and West Yorkshire (278,000).
The data shows Westminster in London has by far the highest crime rate in the country – with 434 offences for every 1,000 people. That’s the equivalent of one crime report for every two people.
It is also more than double the crime rate in Camden, the area with the next highest crime rate (189 crimes per 1,000 population).
This may be explained by the extremely high number of tourists who visit Westminster every year, making it a magnet for criminals – particularly thieves, with offences of theft around three times higher in Westminster than anywhere else.
Outside London, Middlesbrough in the North East has the highest crime rate, with 166 offences for every 1,000 people or the equivalent of one crime for every six people living there, followed by Manchester (158 crimes per 1,000 population), Blackpool (155), and Hartlepool (141).
National police recorded crime figures show that, while homicides fell by 4% last year, offences involving knives increased by 4%, and firearms by 19%. There was also a 4% rise in robbery and a 23% increase in shoplifting.