Photo: Stephen Craven · CC BY-SA 2.0Crime per resident in Crewe runs higher than in 91% of UK towns
Year on year, 51.3 violent and sexual offences and 14.3 incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and damage occur per 1,000 residents. That puts it at D for safety, judged on crimes police recorded inside Crewe’s built-up area from September 2023 to August 2026. Drugs runs at 7.5 per 1,000 residents locally, against 3.8 in a typical town its size: police recorded 559 in the 12 months to August 2026. Recorded violence held steady in a year.
Crimes and reports per 1,000 residents (Census 2021) a year, September 2023 to August 2026.
What stands out about safety in Crewe
More crime than many places its size
Of 96 UK towns and cities of 52,000 to 100,000 people, Crewe has the 62nd lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Hastings, Barrow-in-Furness and Darlington, higher than Kettering, Dartford and Bedford. Towns its size ↓
Neighbourhood ranks
35% of Crewe’s residents live in a neighbourhood ranked in the highest-crime 20% of England (Indices of Deprivation 2025, crime domain), and 19% in the lowest-crime 30%. Neighbourhood ranks ↓
Written from the police.uk and government data on this page. Figures are crimes police recorded, not convictions.
What’s behind Crewe’s grade
A firm grade. Built on 14,526 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Crewe against every UK town of 1,000 or more.
Per resident, against all UK towns; beside it, how it compares with towns its size.
What police recorded in the last 12 months
Against the typical town its size, Crewe runs highest on drugs (7.5 per 1,000 against 3.8), public order (12.6 per 1,000 against 7.4) and other crime (2.9 per 1,000 against 2.1). Anti-social behaviour and vehicle crime sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 3,591 | 48.5 | 38.6 |
| Public order | not graded | 934 | 12.6 | 7.4 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 791 | 10.7 | 17.5 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 604 | 8.1 | 10.3 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 577 | 7.8 | 7.5 |
| Drugs | not graded | 559 | 7.5 | 3.8 |
| Other theft | not graded | 521 | 7 | 6.6 |
| Other crime | not graded | 218 | 2.9 | 2.1 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 201 | 2.7 | 3.4 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 179 | 2.4 | 4.9 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 102 | 1.4 | 1.1 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 81 | 1.1 | 0.9 |
| Robbery | Violent | 52 | 0.7 | 1.4 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 25 | 0.3 | 0.7 |
“Violent” is police.uk’s violence and sexual offences (which includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury), robbery and possession of weapons. Anti-social behaviour isn’t a crime category; shoplifting and other theft happen mostly in shops and town centres rather than to residents, so neither counts in the grade.
September 2025 to August 2026, per 1,000 residents. The tick on each bar is the typical (median) town among UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more.
35% of Crewe residents live in one of England’s highest-crime neighbourhoods
19% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of England’s neighbourhoods, and 35% in the highest-crime 20%. The crime domain scores the risk of violence, burglary, theft and criminal damage where people live, so it can read differently from the town-wide rate, which counts crimes where they happened.
Crewe’s residents by the crime decile of their neighbourhood (LSOA, about 1,500 people) in the English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (crime domain), where 1 is the highest-crime 10% of England’s neighbourhoods and 10 the lowest.
Crime in Crewe per 1,000 residents
A crime isn’t a victim: one person can report several, and crimes in a town centre often involve visitors rather than residents.
And about 13 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 17 shoplifting and theft reports, in the 12 months to August 2026. Each dot is one resident; each coloured dot is one recorded crime.
Lowest recorded crime in Willaston and Rope, Wistaston and Crewe St Barnabas; highest in Crewe Central
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Willaston and Rope | 2,120 | 23.6 | 4.2 | |
| Wistaston | 8,973 | 24.3 | 6.6 | |
| Crewe St Barnabas | 5,490 | 32.8 | 9.1 | |
| Crewe North | 4,800 | 33.5 | 8.8 | |
| Leighton | 6,028 | 40.5 | 7.6 | |
| Shavington | 1,017 | 48.2 | 11.5 | |
| Crewe West | 10,683 | 48.4 | 13.3 | |
| Crewe South | 12,443 | 58 | 19.5 | |
| Crewe East | 15,644 | 62.3 | 17.3 | |
| Crewe Central | 6,918 | 96.5 | 25.7 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Car parks | 1,733 | 36% violent |
| Supermarkets | 1,479 | 54% shoplifting & theft |
| Hospitals | 407 | 57% violent |
| Petrol stations | 365 | 41% shoplifting & theft |
| Shopping areas | 260 | 65% shoplifting & theft |
| Police stations | 145 | 58% drugs, public order & other |
| College and university buildings | 55 | 53% violent |
| Sports and recreation grounds | 39 | 56% violent |
| Nightclubs | 24 | 29% violent |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Crewe Central records 2.1× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Crewe. police.uk places each crime at an anonymous map point; some are named for the kind of place (a supermarket, a car park), and each row adds up every place of that kind in Crewe. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Crewe’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
Police in Crewe identify a suspect more often than across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 63% of Crewe’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 11% of violent and sexual offences against 19%. Most violent cases close as “unable to prosecute” (56% here), usually because the victim doesn’t support a prosecution. About 10% of violent and 5% of household crimes reached court.
The latest outcome police.uk shows for each crime recorded in the first of the three years (September 2023 to August 2024), so most cases have closed. 4,949 crimes.
62nd of 96: Crewe among towns its size
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Metropolitan Castlereagh Lisburn and Castlereagh | 58,763 | 14.8 | 6.6 | 7.1 | A− |
| … | ||||||
| 25 | Macclesfield Cheshire | 54,352 | 40.2 | 10.2 | 14.3 | C− |
| … | ||||||
| 36 | Ellesmere Port Cheshire | 65,425 | 44.3 | 10.8 | 14.9 | C− |
| … | ||||||
| 43 | Chester Cheshire | 92,756 | 46.9 | 10.8 | 18.9 | D |
| … | ||||||
| 45 | Widnes Cheshire | 59,938 | 45.3 | 13 | 12 | D |
| … | ||||||
| 59 | Kettering Northamptonshire | 63,149 | 49.6 | 14.2 | 16.5 | D |
| 60 | Dartford Kent | 69,131 | 43.5 | 20.8 | 17.4 | D |
| 61 | Bedford Bedfordshire | 97,226 | 44.5 | 20.3 | 23.9 | D |
| 62 | Crewe Cheshire | 74,116 | 51.3 | 14.3 | 17.6 | D |
| 63 | Harlow Essex | 93,570 | 45.5 | 20.5 | 19.4 | D |
| 64 | Wellingborough Northamptonshire | 54,421 | 48.9 | 19.1 | 21.7 | D |
| 65 | Gravesend Kent | 58,105 | 45.1 | 23.1 | 17.7 | D |
| … | ||||||
| 96 | Doncaster South Yorkshire | 87,440 | 72.6 | 38.2 | 43.3 | D− |
Safety letters rank against every UK town of 1,000 or more; the order here is context only.
Graded crime per 1,000 residents a year, September 2023 to August 2026, counting from the least: towns ranked near Crewe, and others in Cheshire.
How crime in Crewe has moved
“Towns its size” pools all UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more that police.uk covers each month (Greater Manchester has no data).
Rolling three-month rate, per 1,000 residents a year. In the 12 months to August 2026 against the 12 before: violent -3% (towns its size +2%), homes and vehicles -6% (towns its size -5%), shoplifting and theft +0% (towns its size -3%), anti-social behaviour +5% (towns its size -2%).
Three people died in collisions on Crewe’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 473 collisions with injuries inside Crewe in five years, in which three people died (2 were pedestrians). 109 people were killed or seriously injured: 24 on foot and 33 on a bicycle.
That is about what is typical for UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more: at their median rate (1.1 deaths per 100,000 residents a year), a town of Crewe’s size would see about 4 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Crewe’s own rate (0.8) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Crewe had 29.4 people killed or seriously injured per 100,000 residents a year, about the same as the median for UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more (30.3). 22% of them were on foot, against 31% across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more.
Casualties are counted where the collision happened, not where people lived: a main road through town adds through-traffic, and residents’ own risk on roads elsewhere isn’t here. Seriously injured uses the Department for Transport’s adjusted figures, which even out the police forces’ different ways of recording injuries. There’s no national rate here: more than half of road deaths in England and Wales (58%) happen outside every town’s built-up area. Source: DfT road casualty statistics (STATS19), 2021–2025.
Collisions police recorded inside Crewe’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Crewe
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crewe | 74,116 | 51.3 | 14.3 | D |
| Haslington | 5,042 | 17.1 | 4 | A− |
| Willaston (Cheshire East) | 3,653 | 21.2 | 5.3 | B+ |
| Shavington | 4,972 | 23.2 | 6.9 | B |
| Winterley | 1,371 | 18 | 4.1 | A− |
| Nantwich | 18,741 | 39.5 | 8.8 | C− |
| Wheelock | 2,155 | 29.7 | 5.7 | C+ |
| Elworth | 7,646 | 23.9 | 4.5 | B |
Crewe records more graded crime per resident than every neighbour in the table. Haslington, 2.2 miles away, records 17.1 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Crewe’s 51.3.
Per 1,000 residents a year, the same three years. Tap a town for its safety page.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Big public sites inside the boundary. police.uk counted 407 at or near a hospital over three years. They count in Crewe’s rate, as they would for any town that has them.
- Where crimes happen, not where victims live. police.uk places each crime at a point near where it happened. Town centres with shops, stations, a hospital and nightlife record more crime per resident, and residents of nearby villages who come in to shop or go out are part of that count.
- Bigger towns record more per resident. Across UK towns, recorded crime per resident rises steeply with size, more than in the U.S., so a city’s grade sits low against the whole UK. The “towns its size” figures show where Crewe sits among towns like it; they are context and don’t change the grade.
- Points are approximate. police.uk moves each point to the nearest of a set of anonymous map points, so crimes near the edge of the built-up area can fall either side of it.
Questions about safety in Crewe
Is Crewe safe?
Police recorded 51.3 violent and sexual offences and 14.3 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside Crewe’s built-up area). That earns a D for safety: less crime per resident than 9% of UK towns. Among 96 UK towns of 52,000 to 100,000 people, Crewe is 62nd from the least crime.
What are the safest areas of Crewe?
By council ward, Willaston and Rope, Wistaston and Crewe St Barnabas record the least violent and household crime per resident: 23.6, 24.3 and 32.8 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 96.5 in Crewe Central.
Is crime going up in Crewe?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime held steady, burglary, vehicle crime and damage fell 6%, shoplifting and theft held steady and anti-social behaviour rose 5%. Across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more, violent crime held steady.
What is the most common crime in Crewe?
Violence & sexual offences: 3,591 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came public order (934) and shoplifting (604), with 791 reports of anti-social behaviour.
Sources: data.police.uk street-level crime, 36 months to August 2026, points inside the built-up-area boundary · ONS Census 2021, output areas summed to the ONS 2022 built-up area · MHCLG English Indices of Deprivation 2025, crime domain by LSOA (residents from ONS Census 2021) · Department for Transport road casualty statistics (STATS19), collisions 2021–2025, points inside the built-up-area boundary · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.