Caterham is reasonably safe, but not as sleepy as the Surrey address suggests. There's a bit more crime here than in the rest of the district. Violence and sexual offences make up a slightly smaller share of the total than they do nationally. Public order offences make up a larger share. It's an ordinary town surrounded by quieter villages, and the comparison with those villages makes it look worse than it is.
Police recorded 2,237 crimes in Caterham in the year from June 2025 to May 2026. The published rate is about 80 crimes per 1,000 residents, roughly 14% above the average for Tandridge. Both are published figures for the area. They are not worked out by dividing the crime count by the population.
For the same period, the Tandridge district as a whole comes in at about 70 per 1,000 residents, against Caterham's 80. That's a gap of about ten crimes per 1,000 people. Much of the rest of Tandridge is villages and farmland, where very little crime gets recorded. Caterham has most of what a town has, including the late nights.
The neighbourhoods don't look like the setting for a crime problem. There are about 4,420 people per square kilometre on average, which is dense for a town but not for a city. Unemployment is about 3%, and about 3% of households are overcrowded. Put simply, it's a busy commuter town where most people have work and enough space at home.
The mix of crimes is close to the national one in most categories:
| Category | Caterham | England and Wales | |---|---|---| | Violence and sexual offences | 33% | 35% | | Anti-social behaviour | 18% | 16% | | Public order offences | 12% | 7% | | Other theft | 8% | 7% | | Criminal damage and arson | 8% | 7% | | Shoplifting | 7% | 8% |
Violence and sexual offences is the biggest category almost everywhere. It's a wide legal grouping that includes common assault where nobody is injured, and Caterham's share is slightly below the national one. Public order offences are the one category clearly above the national share. They tend to be noisy, unpleasant incidents rather than dangerous ones, and they matter more to someone living above a pub than to someone on a quiet road.
Whether a crime leads to a charge depends on the police force, not the town. Surrey Police, which covers the whole county, charges a suspect in about 11% of cases, against about 12% nationally. That puts it 30th of 42 forces. About 36% of its cases close with no suspect identified. None of this measures how safe Caterham is. It tells you what to expect after reporting a crime, and for a stolen bike it usually won't end in a charge.
Caterham is middling on safety: a bit above its own district average, with a crime mix close to the national one.