Chinnor is a safe village, and safer than the district around it. Recorded crime runs nearly a fifth below the local average. Almost nobody is out of work. Overcrowded homes are rare. The worst of the local crime figures belongs to the police who deal with it, more than to the village.
Thames Valley Police recorded 308 crimes in Chinnor in the year to May 2026, a published rate of about 40 per 1,000 residents. That puts the village roughly 18% below the average for South Oxfordshire. The figure covers a full twelve months from June 2025, so one rowdy bank holiday cannot rewrite it.
South Oxfordshire as a whole recorded about 49 crimes per 1,000 residents over the same year, against Chinnor's 40. The district is hardly a crime hotspot itself, so the village is doing better than an already calm average.
Across its neighbourhoods Chinnor averages about 3,700 people per square kilometre, unemployment is about 2%, and about 2% of homes are overcrowded. That is the profile of a large village of owner-occupied houses under the Chiltern escarpment: closes, driveways and front gardens, with not much in between. Those figures describe the place. They do not explain its crime rate.
The mix comes with a warning attached. Chinnor's totals are small enough that a handful of incidents can move any share by several points, so the split below describes one year and not the character of the village. Violence and sexual offences made up about 43% of recorded crime, against about 35% nationally. That category is the largest almost everywhere and covers a wide legal range, including common assault where nobody was hurt. Anti-social behaviour came to about 16%, level with the national 16%. Criminal damage and arson made up about 10% against 7% nationally, other theft about 9% against 7%, and public order about 8% against 7%. Shoplifting was about 5%, below the national 8%, which is easier to manage in a village whose shops serve its own residents and nobody passing through.
The charge rate is a separate question from how safe the place is, and it belongs to the force, not the village. Thames Valley Police charges a suspect in about 9% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which ranks it 37th of 42 forces in England and Wales. About 37% of its cases close with no suspect identified. In Chinnor, crimes are fairly rare, and when one happens, getting it solved is harder than it should be.
Safety is one of Chinnor's real strengths. Crime here is low enough that the bigger worry is the force's record at charging anyone, more than the chance of being a victim in the first place.