Photo: AirScott · CC BY-SA 4.0Few compared French towns record more crime per resident than Saint-Omer
The crimes the grade counts fell 9% per resident from 2023 to 2025. At 3.1 per 1,000 residents, drug dealing in Saint-Omer runs well past the 0.3 of a typical town its size (44 recorded in 2025). On the record of offenses police and gendarmerie recorded here from 2023 to 2025, it takes D− for safety: #117 of 120 in Pas-de-Calais. Violence and property crime split as 29.7 violent crimes and 24.5 incidents of burglary, vehicle theft and damage per 1,000 residents a year.
Offenses recorded per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025 average (INSEE population of each year). Violence, and burglaries, vehicle thefts, thefts from vehicles and criminal damage, count equally.
What stands out about safety in Saint-Omer
Theft from vehicles fell sharply
Police and gendarmerie recorded 58 cases of theft from vehicles in Saint-Omer in 2023 and 31 in 2025. Small counts swing from year to year; the grade averages the three years. Year by year ↓
Written from the SSMSI and INSEE data on this page. Figures are offenses police and gendarmerie recorded, not convictions.
The grade: D− for Saint-Omer
A firm grade. Built on 2,338 offenses recorded in the graded categories over three years; with a town of 14,382, a few cases more or fewer would move it between D− and D−.
Hidden counts: for armed robbery, this figure isn’t published when it’s small (five or fewer in at least one of the last three years); the index uses the département’s average instead, 0.1% of the index here. What isn’t published ↓
Per resident, against the 4,295 compared French towns with a Safety Grade.
What police and gendarmerie recorded most in 2025
Well above the median of towns its size: drug dealing (3.1 per 1,000 against 0.3), drug use (21.9 per 1,000 against 4) and other physical violence (11.1 per 1,000 against 3.3). Not published for 2025: armed robbery.
Theft without violence, robbery without a weapon, theft of vehicle parts, fraud and drug offenses are shown for information but left out of the Safety Grade, which counts violence plus burglaries, vehicle thefts, thefts from vehicles and criminal damage per resident.
Per 1,000 residents in 2025; the tick is the median of the graded French towns of 10,000 to 50,000.
Towns its size: Saint-Omer comes 519th of 524
| # | Town | People | Violence | Homes, vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Apatou French Guiana | 10,306 | 5.9 | 1.8 | A+ |
| … | |||||
| 24 | Marck Pas-de-Calais | 10,467 | 6.2 | 9.1 | A− |
| … | |||||
| 283 | Étaples Pas-de-Calais | 10,710 | 11.9 | 15.2 | C |
| … | |||||
| 344 | Oignies Pas-de-Calais | 10,323 | 12.4 | 16.7 | C− |
| … | |||||
| 356 | Outreau Pas-de-Calais | 13,138 | 10.4 | 19.2 | C− |
| … | |||||
| 516 | Vesoul Haute-Saône | 15,078 | 18.6 | 30.2 | D− |
| 517 | Caudry Nord | 13,833 | 24.4 | 25.8 | D− |
| 518 | Canet-en-Roussillon Pyrénées-Orientales | 13,227 | 12.4 | 39.5 | D− |
| 519 | Saint-Omer Pas-de-Calais | 14,382 | 29.7 | 24.5 | D− |
| 520 | Seclin Nord | 13,261 | 12.1 | 44.9 | D− |
| 521 | Argelès-sur-Mer Pyrénées-Orientales | 10,616 | 21.1 | 40.6 | D− |
| 522 | Marseille 16e Bouches-du-Rhône | 15,854 | 13.5 | 57.8 | D− |
| … | |||||
| 524 | Paris 1er Paris | 15,114 | 45.5 | 67.1 | D− |
Per 1,000 residents a year. Context only: the grade compares Saint-Omer with every compared French town, not just towns its size.
Lowest rate in the graded categories first, 2023–2025 average, with the closest to Saint-Omer and up to four from Pas-de-Calais.
Crime in Saint-Omer per 1,000 residents
Each dot is one resident’s share: offenses are counted, not victims, and one person can be the victim of several.
And 25 burglaries, vehicle thefts, thefts from vehicles and acts of criminal damage, and 18 thefts without violence and frauds: a year, 2023–2025 average.
Saint-Omer, year by year
Violence · per 1,000 residents
Burglary, vehicle theft, damage · per 1,000 residents
| Kind | In the grade | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Family violence | Violence | 194 | 208 | 180 |
| Other physical violence | Violence | 170 | 167 | 160 |
| Sexual violence | Violence | 59 | 78 | 63 |
| Armed robbery | Violence | n.p. | n.p. | n.p. |
| Burglary | Burglary, vehicle theft, damage | 29 | 42 | 35 |
| Vehicle theft | Burglary, vehicle theft, damage | 13 | 10 | 13 |
| Theft from vehicles | Burglary, vehicle theft, damage | 58 | 41 | 31 |
| Criminal damage | Burglary, vehicle theft, damage | 277 | 265 | 245 |
| Theft without violence | Not in the grade | 174 | 149 | 143 |
| Robbery without a weapon | Not in the grade | 22 | 10 | 12 |
| Theft of vehicle parts | Not in the grade | 8 | 5 | 10 |
| Fraud | Not in the grade | 94 | 99 | 127 |
| Drug use | Not in the grade | 288 | 310 | 315 |
| Drug dealing | Not in the grade | 31 | 37 | 44 |
Counts mix units, as SSMSI publishes them: victims for violence, offenses for burglary and damage, vehicles for vehicle theft. That’s why the page never adds them into one “total crimes”.
Offenses recorded each year. n.p.: not published (small: five or fewer in at least one of the last three years).
Saint-Omer and the towns around it
| Town | People | Violence | Homes, vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saint-Omer | 14,382 | 29.7 | 24.5 | D− |
| Longuenesse | 10,548 | 22.2 | 12.6 | D |
| Saint-Martin-lez-Tatinghem | 5,843 | 7.4 | 8.3 | A− |
| Arques | 9,431 | 12.3 | 16.5 | C− |
| Blendecques | 4,859 | 12 | 9.2 | B− |
| Wizernes | 3,321 | 8 | 5.8 | A |
| Watten Nord | 2,564 | 6.8 | 9.3 | A− |
Saint-Omer’s recorded rate in the graded categories is higher than each of its 6 graded neighbors’.
The nearest towns of 2,500 or more, per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025 average.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Where offenses happen, not where victims live. SSMSI counts each offense in the commune where police or gendarmerie recorded it happening. Towns with shops, stations, a hospital or nightlife record more per resident, and visitors are part of that count but not of the population it is divided by.
- An index, not a total. The kinds are counted in different units (victims, offenses, vehicles), so the grade adds their rates per 1,000 residents into an index and never shows a “total crimes” or a chance of being a victim.
- Hidden counts. SSMSI doesn’t publish a commune’s count when it’s small (five or fewer in at least one of the last three years). In its place it gives the average among the département’s communes whose count is hidden; the grade uses that average, never zero, and a town gets no Safety Grade when over a quarter of its index would come from such averages.
- Recorded, not all crime. Only offenses reported to or found by police and gendarmerie are counted. Reporting rates differ by kind: most vehicle thefts are reported, much family and sexual violence isn’t.
Questions about safety in Saint-Omer
Is Saint-Omer safe?
It has more crime per resident than 99% of compared French towns: an average of 29.7 recorded violent incidents and 24.5 recorded burglaries, vehicle thefts, thefts from vehicles and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025. It grades D− for safety, #117 of 120 in Pas-de-Calais. With 7,700 jobs for 5,300 working residents, Saint-Omer draws people from neighboring communes, and crimes are counted in the commune where they happen, then divided by its number of residents.
Is crime going up in Saint-Omer?
The recorded rate in the graded categories fell 9% from 2023 to 2025: 55.7 per 1,000 residents in 2023, 50.6 in 2025. In a town this size a few dozen cases move the figure, so the grade uses the three-year average.
What is the most common recorded offense in Saint-Omer?
Drug use: 315 in 2025, shown for information, not in the grade. Then criminal damage (245), family violence (180) and other physical violence (160).
Sources: SSMSI (Interior Ministry), recorded crime by commune, 2023–2025 (base communale de la délinquance enregistrée, 2026 edition) · INSEE, legal populations for each year · INSEE, census 2023 (jobs and working residents) · IGN Admin Express (boundaries) · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranking French towns against each other only, updated November 4, 2026. Under the Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab).
Contains public sector information under the Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0 (Etalab): INSEE, DGFiP, the Interior Ministry’s statistics service (SSMSI), the Ministry of Education (DEPP), the Health Ministry’s statistics service (DREES) and the Housing Ministry (Carte des loyers). Commune boundaries: IGN Admin Express.