Bedford is less safe than the borough it belongs to, and the town itself is behind that difference. Crime runs about a quarter higher than across the borough as a whole. What gets recorded follows the national pattern almost category by category. Only cars come off noticeably worse. The town has more crime than its surroundings, though the crime itself is of a very ordinary kind.
On police.uk's published figures for the year to May 2026, Bedford recorded about 122 crimes per 1,000 people, or 12,542 offences in all, which is roughly 25% above the average for Bedford Borough. To see how that varies from street to street, police.uk's own crime map shows the months you care about. That is more useful than a town-wide number for an area as mixed as this one.
The borough-wide rate over the same year was about 97 per 1,000. That borough average includes Bedford, which makes up most of it, and the town is still a quarter above it. So the extra crime comes from the town itself, with the villages on the page pulling the borough average down.
The town is densely built, with an average of about 6,500 people per square kilometre across its neighbourhoods. At the 2021 census, unemployment was 3% and about 6% of households were overcrowded. These are descriptions of the town, and none of them explains its crime rate by itself. The page also covers villages like Yelden and Souldrop, which share none of that density.
Violence and sexual offences make up 35% of Bedford's recorded crime, which is the same share as across England and Wales. That broad legal category runs all the way down to common assault with no injury. Anti-social behaviour, at about 16%, is also level with the national figure, and public order offences match at about 7%. Shoplifting is slightly higher than the national share, at 9% against 8%, and other theft is slightly lower, at 6% against 7%. Vehicle crime is the one clear difference, at about 7% of the total against 5% nationally. If something of yours is going to be targeted here, it is most likely to be the car parked outside.
After a crime is reported, Bedfordshire Police charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally. That ranks the force 36th of 42 in England and Wales. Across the whole force area, about 38% of cases are closed without anyone being identified. These are force-wide figures with no street-level breakdown, and they show how likely an offence is to be solved, which is separate from how much crime there is.
Safety is one of Bedford's weaker points. There is more crime than in the borough around it, mostly of the everyday kind, and the force that has to deal with it charges fewer suspects than most. Buyers who rank safety near the top of their list will find the borough's villages a more comfortable choice than the town centre.