Bream is reasonably safe, with a crime rate a little above the rest of the Forest of Dean. The gap over the district average is modest. The total is small enough that a few busy nights can move it. Anti-social behaviour runs higher than you'd expect for its size, and serious crime doesn't. It's a village where a lot of the reports are about noise.
Police.uk recorded 157 crimes in Bream in the year to May 2026, a published rate of about 48 per 1,000 residents. That is about 13% above the Forest of Dean average. In a village this size, a 13% gap comes down to a few dozen incidents a year.
The Forest of Dean as a whole has a rate of about 43 crimes per 1,000 residents over the same period, against Bream's 48. Both are low-to-moderate figures for rural Gloucestershire, and Bream is a few points higher than the district around it.
On average about 2,480 people live in each square kilometre of Bream's built-up area at the 2021 census, which is fairly dense for a forest village. Unemployment was about 2%, and about 2% of households were overcrowded. Bream packs its houses tightly along the ridge, but very few people are out of work or living in cramped homes.
Over the year to May 2026, violence and sexual offences made up about 37% of crime recorded in Bream, against about 35% across England and Wales. The category covers everything from common assault without injury upwards, and the local share is close to the national one. Anti-social behaviour made up about 31%, against about 16% nationally, and it's the only category where Bream stands out. Public order and criminal damage were about 8% each, against 7% nationally, and vehicle crime matched the national share at about 5%. Other theft was lower than the national share, about 4% against 7%. With only 157 crimes in the year, a few incidents can move any of these shares by several points, so next year's mix could look quite different. For a particular street, the police.uk crime map shows reports month by month. Look at where the anti-social behaviour reports cluster, which may be one stretch of road or nowhere near the house you're considering.
Charging decisions are made across Gloucestershire as a whole, not village by village. Gloucestershire Constabulary charges a suspect in about 9% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 39th of 42 forces in England and Wales. About 33% of its cases are closed with no suspect identified. These figures cover the force's recorded outcomes for only eight months of the year to May 2026, and they describe the force's record, not how safe Bream is. The force is much better at keeping crime down in the forest villages than at charging anyone afterwards.
Bream's safety record is middling. Crime is a little higher than in the surrounding district, mostly anti-social behaviour, and if you're bothered by it, it's the thing to look into. Hardly any of it is the kind that makes people fear for their homes.