Cirencester's crime rate is about 66 per 1,000 residents, which is high for the Cotswolds and is the town's main weakness. That is well above the district around it. Shoplifting and nuisance take a much bigger share here than they do nationally. Violence makes up a slightly smaller share than usual. The town looks like a calendar photo, and its crime record does not.
In the year to May 2026, police records show 1,330 crimes in Cirencester. The published rate works out at about 66 per 1,000 residents, roughly 63% above the average for Cotswold district. Those are recorded crimes reported to the police, so they cover what people bothered to report and nothing else.
Across Cotswold district as a whole, the rate for the same year is about 40 per 1,000, against about 66 in Cirencester. The district is mostly villages and farmland. Cirencester is its biggest town and the place those villages drive into, so its rate is being measured against a lot of fields.
The town is built fairly tightly, at about 4,410 people per square kilometre on average across its neighbourhoods. Unemployment is about 2% and overcrowding about 2%. They describe the kind of place this is, and they do nothing to explain the crime figure. This is a comfortable town with a high count, and the two sit side by side without either one explaining the other.
The mix is where Cirencester stands out. Violence and sexual offences make up 32% of recorded crime here, against 35% across England and Wales. That category covers everything from serious assault to a shove without injury, and here it runs slightly below the national share. Anti-social behaviour makes up 23%, against 16% nationally. Shoplifting accounts for 17%, against 8%. Other theft is 8% against 7%, public order 6% against 7%, and criminal damage and arson 4% against 7%. So the part of the mix that runs high here is nuisance and things taken from shops, and the violent part is close to normal. In 1643, Royalists and Parliamentarians fought each other in the town's streets. Most of today's trouble involves security tags.
Once a crime is reported, the outcome depends on the force, not the town. Gloucestershire Constabulary charges a suspect in about 9% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 39th of 42 forces on that measure. About 33% of its cases close with no suspect identified. The force's outcome records cover only eight of the twelve months to May 2026, and they say nothing about how likely a crime is in Cirencester. They show what happens after one, and in Gloucestershire that is less often a charge than in most forces.
On safety, Cirencester is poor. The violent end runs close to normal, but the overall rate is too high for a town this comfortable, and most of the extra comes from shoplifting and anti-social behaviour.