Dartford is moderately safe, though rougher than the rest of its own borough. Crime runs a bit above the borough average. Shoplifting does a lot of the work in that number. Violence makes up a smaller share than it does nationally. Most of what pushes the figure up happens in the shops, not on the residential streets.
Police.uk records about 134 crimes per 1,000 residents in Dartford in the year to May 2026, roughly 14% above the local-authority average. That comes to 10,150 recorded crimes over the same twelve months. Both are published figures for the whole place, and they won't tell you about any single street. Rebels from across Kent gathered at Dartford in June 1381 on their way to start the Peasants' Revolt, so the town has a long history as a place where trouble starts and then moves on somewhere else.
To put the two numbers side by side, the Dartford local authority as a whole runs at about 117 crimes per 1,000 residents over that year, against about 134 in the town. Most of the borough is villages and fields, so the town that holds its station, its shops and its busiest roads was always going to come out higher.
On average Dartford packs in about 7,070 people per square kilometre. About 3% of residents are unemployed and about 6% of households are overcrowded. That describes a busy, built-up town with a working population and a commercial centre, and the crime figures come out of that same setting.
The crime mix is where Dartford stands apart. Shoplifting makes up about 22% of recorded crime here, against about 8% across England and Wales. Violence and sexual offences, the largest category almost everywhere and one that includes common assault without injury, account for about 31% here, below the national 35%. Anti-social behaviour is about 13% against 16% nationally. Criminal damage and arson (about 8% against 7%), other theft (6% against 7%) and vehicle crime (5% against 5%) all run close to the national pattern. So Dartford's figure is pushed up by crime against businesses, while the categories that touch households look much like everywhere else. Look up the exact postcode on the police.uk street map over the past few months, because the town centre and a cul-de-sac in Wilmington will not look the same.
Once something is reported, Kent Police charges a suspect in about 16% of cases, against about 12% nationally, putting the force 6th of 42 in England and Wales. That is a county-wide figure for the force, set by its own charging decisions, and it measures what happens after a crime, not how likely one is. About 36% of Kent Police cases close with no suspect identified. A better charge rate means more cases solved, not fewer crimes to report.
Dartford's safety is middling. The headline is pushed up by a busy shopping centre, and day-to-day life on most of its streets is fairly ordinary.