Yes, Buckingham is a safe area, safer than the county around it. Crime runs below the Buckinghamshire average. Unemployment is low. Hardly anyone lives in an overcrowded home. Where the town stands out is the share of crime that is violence and disorder, which is higher than the national pattern, though the overall amount stays modest.
Thames Valley Police recorded 821 crimes in Buckingham in the twelve months from June 2025 to May 2026. The published rate is about 57 crimes per 1,000 residents, roughly 12% below the Buckinghamshire average. That is a full year of reports, so one bad weekend can't change the picture much. Historically, the worst break-in on record here was when Parliamentarian forces plundered the great house at Bourton in the Civil War, and it was never rebuilt.
Across Buckinghamshire as a whole, the rate is about 65 crimes per 1,000 residents, against about 57 in Buckingham. The county average takes in larger towns as well as villages, and Buckingham comes in under it.
The town is fairly dense, with about 3,500 people per square kilometre, which reflects the compact centre and the estates built around it. About 2% of residents are unemployed, and about 2% of households are overcrowded. The Old Gaol is now a listed building, which tells you something about how much use the town has had for it lately.
The crime mix is the part to read carefully. Violence and sexual offences make up about 41% of Buckingham's recorded crime, against about 35% nationally. That category is broad: it is the biggest one almost everywhere, and it includes common assault where nobody is injured. Public order offences are about 10% here against 7% nationally, and other theft about 9% against 7%. Anti-social behaviour is lower than the national share, about 12% against 16%. Shoplifting, at about 8%, and criminal damage and arson, at about 7%, are both in line with the national shares. So Buckingham has less crime than the county overall, but more of what it does have is confrontation than the national pattern would suggest. The police's street-level crime map shows where reports cluster over the same twelve months, so look up the streets near any house you are thinking of buying.
Getting a charge is a separate question from how much crime there is. Thames Valley Police, the force covering the whole region, charges a suspect in about 9% of cases, against about 12% nationally. That puts it 37th of 42 forces. About 37% of its cases are closed with no suspect identified. Those are force-wide figures, and they describe the force, not the streets of Buckingham. Even so, if your car is broken into here, the odds of anyone being charged are lower than the national average.
Buckingham is a safe place to live, comfortably below the county's crime rate. The higher-than-usual share of violence and disorder is a reason to check the streets near a particular house, not a reason to rule out the town.