Yes, Dagenham is one of the safer parts of its borough. Its crime rate runs about a fifth below the Barking and Dagenham average. Car crime is the one category where it runs ahead of the country. Most of the rest tracks the national pattern closely. The borough's reputation is heavier than Dagenham's own crime figures.
The Metropolitan Police recorded 5,056 crimes across Dagenham in the twelve months to May 2026, and the published rate for the area works out at about 88 crimes per 1,000 residents. That is roughly 21% below the average for Barking and Dagenham over the same year. Any single road can do better or worse than the area figure, so look up the specific street on the national police crime map, where incidents are logged month by month.
Set side by side, Dagenham's rate is about 88 per 1,000 and the borough's is about 112 per 1,000. Both are published figures for the year to May 2026. A buyer who rules out the whole borough on its reputation is ruling out its calmer half along with the rest.
The area is dense and working hard. Dagenham averages about 12,600 people per square kilometre, about 18% of households are overcrowded, and unemployment is about 4%. These describe the kind of neighbourhood behind the crime figures, and none of them works as an explanation for them. On a borough comparison, a place packed this tightly might be expected to carry more crime than its neighbours, and Dagenham carries less.
By category, violence and sexual offences make up about 37% of recorded crime in Dagenham against about 35% across England and Wales, close to the national share. That heading is a broad legal grouping that includes common assault without injury, and it is the largest category almost everywhere. Anti-social behaviour accounts for about 19% locally against 16% nationally. Criminal damage and arson (about 6% against 7%), public order offences (about 5% against 7%) and other theft (about 5% against 7%) all come in a little under the national share. Vehicle crime is about 9% of the total here against about 5% nationally. Cortinas and Sierras once rolled out of Dagenham, and cars are still where the local figures run hottest.
Once a crime is reported, the Metropolitan Police Service charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, and ranks 33rd of 42 forces on that measure over the twelve months to May 2026. Across the force, about 53% of cases are closed without a suspect being identified. Those are force-wide figures for the whole of London's police, and they show how cases are resolved once reported. How often crime happens in Dagenham is a separate question, answered by the rate above.
Safety is one of Dagenham's real strengths. Buyers who want outer east London without the borough's higher crime rate will find it here.