Bexleyheath has a poor safety record, even by the standards of its own borough. Recorded crime runs at about 123 offences per thousand residents a year. That is around half as high again as Bexley as a whole. The extra leans towards nuisance and shoplifting, and violence makes up a smaller share than it does nationally. It is a busy town centre's crime record, and the people who live here put up with it.
The Metropolitan Police recorded 2,468 crimes in Bexleyheath between June 2025 and May 2026, a published rate of about 123 per 1,000 residents. That rate is roughly 53% above the average for the London Borough of Bexley over the same twelve months.
Put the two numbers next to each other: about 123 crimes per 1,000 residents in Bexleyheath, against about 81 per 1,000 across Bexley as a whole. The borough figure includes Bexleyheath itself, so the rest of Bexley comes out lower still on the same measure. Bexleyheath also serves as the borough's administrative base and main shopping town, and the London Plan lists it among London's major centres. Its crime count is a major centre's count too.
The neighbourhood itself is ordinary outer London. Around 5,500 people live in each square kilometre on average, unemployment stood at about 3% at the 2021 Census, and about 5% of households were overcrowded. Those figures describe a fairly dense, mostly working suburb. On their own they explain little about the crime rate, and they are not given here as a cause.
The mix is where the picture sharpens. Violence and sexual offences made up about 28% of Bexleyheath's recorded crime against about 35% across England and Wales, so the category that makes most places sound frightening takes a smaller share here than average. Anti-social behaviour made up about 22% against 16% nationally, and shoplifting about 12% against 8%. Drugs offences ran at about 6% against 4%, public order at about 7%, almost exactly the national share, and criminal damage and arson at about 5% against 7%. The big shopping streets attract shoppers, and they also attract a share of people who leave without paying. The police's online crime map shows reports by approximate location, so look at the streets around a house you are considering, not just the town total, and see how close it is to the centre.
Once a crime is reported, the Metropolitan Police charges a suspect in about 10% of cases across its whole force area, against about 12% nationally, putting it 33rd of 42 forces in the year to May 2026. About 53% of the Met's cases are closed with no suspect identified. Those are force-wide figures covering all of London. They tell you how likely an arrest is after something happens, and nothing about how likely it is to happen in Bexleyheath in the first place.
Safety is Bexleyheath's weak spot. The crime here is mostly the low-level kind, but there is enough of it that a buyer should pick a street with the shopping centre's opening hours in mind.