Photo: Cath Mudford · CC BY-SA 3.0On violent crime, Barry has a higher rate per resident than 85% of UK towns
It grades C− for safety on crimes police recorded inside Barry’s built-up area from September 2023 to August 2026. With 677 cases in the 12 months to August 2026, public order reaches 12 per 1,000 residents in the town, well above the typical 7.4. Recorded violence rose 5% in a year. Each year brought 40.2 violent and sexual offences and 15.3 incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and damage for every 1,000 residents.
Crimes and reports per 1,000 residents (Census 2021) a year, September 2023 to August 2026.
What stands out about safety in Barry
Violent crime rose over the year
In the 12 months to August 2026 police recorded 5% more violent crime per resident in Barry than in the year before; across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more violent crime held steady. Burglary, vehicle crime and criminal damage fell 16% (towns its size: held steady). Trend ↓
About the middle for a town its size
Of 116 UK towns and cities of 40,000 to 76,000 people, Barry has the 59th lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Durham, Loughborough and Lowestoft, higher than Corby, Ellesmere Port and Grantham. Towns its size ↓
Written from the police.uk and government data on this page. Figures are crimes police recorded, not convictions.
What’s behind Barry’s grade
A firm grade. Built on 9,370 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Barry 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, Barry runs highest on public order (12 per 1,000 against 7.4), shoplifting (15.2 per 1,000 against 10.3) and other crime (2.5 per 1,000 against 2.1). Anti-social behaviour and burglary sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 2,181 | 38.5 | 38.6 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 858 | 15.2 | 10.3 |
| Public order | not graded | 677 | 12 | 7.4 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 580 | 10.2 | 17.5 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 431 | 7.6 | 7.5 |
| Other theft | not graded | 295 | 5.2 | 6.6 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 248 | 4.4 | 4.9 |
| Other crime | not graded | 142 | 2.5 | 2.1 |
| Drugs | not graded | 130 | 2.3 | 3.8 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 105 | 1.9 | 3.4 |
| Robbery | Violent | 60 | 1.1 | 1.4 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 55 | 1 | 1.1 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 29 | 0.5 | 0.7 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 15 | 0.3 | 0.9 |
“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.
Crime in Barry 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 14 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 21 shoplifting and theft reports, in the 12 months to August 2026. Each dot is one resident; each coloured dot is one recorded crime.
Police in Barry identify a suspect more often than across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 62% of Barry’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” (68% here), usually because the victim doesn’t support a prosecution. About 11% of violent and 6% 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. 3,176 crimes.
Lowest recorded crime in Dyfan, Sully and Baruc; highest in Castleland
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dyfan | 5,505 | 18.5 | 9.9 | |
| Sully | 3,235 | 24.9 | 10.5 | |
| Baruc | 8,663 | 25.7 | 10 | |
| Illtyd | 7,938 | 28.9 | 10.2 | |
| Cadoc | 9,842 | 40.8 | 17.2 | |
| Gibbonsdown | 5,486 | 52.3 | 17.3 | |
| Buttrills | 6,186 | 54.5 | 17.2 | |
| Court | 4,825 | 53.3 | 19 | |
| Castleland | 4,909 | 70.3 | 29 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Shopping areas | 490 | 55% shoplifting & theft |
| Supermarkets | 442 | 69% shoplifting & theft |
| Car parks | 389 | 36% violent |
| Petrol stations | 233 | 67% shoplifting & theft |
| Sports and recreation grounds | 151 | 58% violent |
| Nightclubs | 132 | 43% violent |
| Police stations | 106 | 45% violent |
| Conference and exhibition centres | 35 | 43% violent |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Castleland records 1.9× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Barry. 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 Barry. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Barry’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
How crime in Barry 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 +5% (towns its size +2%), homes and vehicles -16% (towns its size -5%), shoplifting and theft +8% (towns its size -3%), anti-social behaviour -21% (towns its size -2%).
How Barry’s neighbourhoods rank in Wales
22% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of Wales’s neighbourhoods, and 24% in the highest-crime 20%. The community safety domain scores recorded crime, anti-social behaviour and fire incidents where people live, so it can read differently from the town-wide rate, which counts crimes where they happened.
Barry’s residents by the crime decile of their neighbourhood (LSOA, about 1,500 people) in the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025 (community safety domain), where 1 is the highest-crime 10% of Wales’s neighbourhoods and 10 the lowest.
59th of 116: Barry 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− |
| … | ||||||
| 56 | Corby Northamptonshire | 68,164 | 41.1 | 13.2 | 16.4 | C− |
| 57 | Ellesmere Port Cheshire | 65,425 | 44.3 | 10.8 | 14.9 | C− |
| 58 | Grantham Lincolnshire | 44,906 | 39.6 | 15.7 | 20.5 | C− |
| 59 | Barry South Glamorgan | 56,589 | 40.2 | 15.3 | 20.9 | C− |
| 60 | Gosport Hampshire | 70,120 | 43.6 | 13 | 13.5 | C− |
| 61 | Stafford Staffordshire | 71,695 | 43.8 | 12.8 | 16 | C− |
| 62 | Grays Essex | 44,340 | 37.3 | 19.3 | 20.6 | C− |
| … | ||||||
| 116 | Bridgwater Somerset | 47,846 | 76.8 | 18.9 | 29.3 | 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 Barry, and others in South Glamorgan.
One person died in collisions on Barry’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 180 collisions with injuries inside Barry in five years, in which one person died. 34 people were killed or seriously injured: 15 on foot and 3 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 Barry’s size would see about 3 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Barry’s own rate (0.4) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Barry had 12.1 people killed or seriously injured per 100,000 residents a year, below the median for UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more (30.3). 44% 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 Barry’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Barry
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barry | 56,589 | 40.2 | 15.3 | C− |
| Wenvoe | 1,129 | 16.5 | 10.3 | B |
| Dinas Powis | 7,891 | 18.2 | 6.9 | B+ |
| Rhoose | 6,776 | 20.3 | 7.2 | B |
| Penarth | 28,391 | 23.7 | 12.9 | C+ |
| St Athan | 1,594 | 27.2 | 9.4 | C+ |
| Eglwys-Brewis | 3,300 | 24.3 | 8.1 | B− |
| Cardiff | 348,511 | 40 | 22.4 | D |
Barry records more graded crime per resident than 6 of its 7 neighbours; only Cardiff records more. Wenvoe, 2.5 miles away, records 16.5 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Barry’s 40.2.
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
- 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 Barry 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 Barry
Is Barry safe?
Police recorded 40.2 violent and sexual offences and 15.3 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside Barry’s built-up area). That earns a C− for safety: less crime per resident than 16% of UK towns. Among 116 UK towns of 40,000 to 76,000 people, Barry is 59th from the least crime.
What are the safest areas of Barry?
By council ward, Dyfan, Sully and Baruc record the least violent and household crime per resident: 18.5, 24.9 and 25.7 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 70.3 in Castleland.
Is crime going up in Barry?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime rose 5%, burglary, vehicle crime and damage fell 16%, shoplifting and theft rose 8% and anti-social behaviour fell 21%. Across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more, violent crime held steady.
Is Barry town centre safe at night?
police.uk placed 132 crimes and reports at or near nightclubs in three years, 43% of them violent, and Castleland ward records 70.3 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 of its residents a year. Over the last two years, violent crime peaked in May and was lowest in February.
What is the most common crime in Barry?
Violence & sexual offences: 2,181 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came shoplifting (858) and public order (677), with 580 reports of anti-social behaviour.
How does Barry compare with Cardiff?
Cardiff records 40 violent and sexual offences and 22.4 crimes against homes and vehicles per 1,000 residents a year, against Barry’s 40.2 and 15.3, over the same three years.
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 · Welsh Government Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025, community safety domain by LSOA · 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.