Crime statistics released by the Metropolitan police have revealed the safest boroughs in terms of crime across London in 2024.
The Metropolitan Police’s Connect system allows the force to break down crimes into categories, such as hate crime, domestic abuse, knife crime and gun incidents, as well as where they happened. The data is updated regularly and every month stats will be released showing the level of incidents around the capital.
The most recent data for December shows there were 77,981 offences over the month – 2 per cent more than for the same period in 2023.
The most common offence across the capital was theft, with 27,730 recorded incidents.
Second was violence against the person – with 19,526 offences, followed by 7,489 vehicle offences.
This was followed by burglary on 4,875; arson and criminal damage on 4,265, public order offences totalling 4,086 and drug offences on 3,952.
Next on the list was robbery on 2,773, followed by sexual offences on 2,027.
For 2024 as a whole, there were 948,491 offences recorded.
People are now able to click on their borough and find out the crime stats, including the number and type of offences, what were the most commonly reported offences and how their borough compares with others.
Here is a breakdown of some of the data.
Which London borough was the safest in 2024?
The data is broken down into the borough name, the number of offences and then the number of offences per 1,000 of the population.
The information per 1,000 of the population has been given so boroughs can be compared. Bigger boroughs will be likely to have a higher number of crimes as their population is greater, so this statistic makes it possible to compare boroughs with each other.
Residents of Richmond upon Thames enjoy the highest level of personal safety in London
Derek Harper/Geograph
The borough was the safest in 2024, with 12,113 incidents recorded by police – working out at 60.7 offences per 1,000 of the population.
Of these stats, 3,231 were for theft, 3,011 were for violence against a person and 1,795 were for vehicle crimes.
There were 1,012 reports of burglary and 949 of arson and criminal damage.
Kingston upon Thames was the second safest borough in London in 2024.
More than half of crimes in Kingston upon Thames were theft or violence against the person
Daniel Lynch
There were 11,155 offences reported to police, working out at 62.1 offences per 1,000 of the population.
Theft was again the most common offence reported on 3,526, followed by violence against a person on 3,129 offences reported.
Arson and criminal damage were reported 980 times, while drug offences were reported 523 times.
The south London borough was the third safest.
Unusually for London, Sutton had more crimes reported of violence against the person than of theft
Kirsty O’Connor/PA Wire
Police recorded 13,054 incidents in Sutton in 2024, working out at 62.9 offences per 1,000 people.
Here the most common offence was violence against a person, with 4,461 offences recorded, followed by 2,836 of theft and 1,373 of vehicle offences.
Harrow came in as the fourth safest borough for 2024.
Vehicle offences were the third most common type in Harrow
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There were 16,475 recorded offences in Harrow but it is a larger borough, so the ratio works out at 64.5 offences per 1,000 of the population.
The most common offence was violence against a person with 4,838 offences reported, followed by theft with 4,479 offences.
Vehicle offences ranked third for this borough with 2,164, followed by burglary on 1,128 offences.
Merton had nearly 66 offences per 1,000 of population
Google Street View
Merton came in in fifth, recording 13,817 offences. This works out as 65.9 offences per 1,000 of the population.
Violence against a person was the most common offence with 4,014 followed by theft on 3,714. Vehicle offences were next with 1,583.
Arson and criminal damage were next on the list with 1,069 offences.