Not especially, and the figures don't leave much room for doubt. Recorded crime runs well above the rest of the district. The types of crime look much like anywhere else in England. Kent Police charges suspects more often than most forces. Dover has more crime than its neighbours, not stranger crime.
Police figures for the year from June 2025 to May 2026 put Dover's recorded crime rate at about 146 per 1,000 residents, roughly 63% above the local-authority average. That is close to 6,000 recorded crimes over the year. Both are published figures, and the rate uses its own population base, so it shouldn't be checked by dividing one by the other. An estate agent will call the town centre lively. The crime figures use a different word.
The district as a whole records about 90 crimes per 1,000 residents over the same period, against Dover's 146. The comparison is a little unfair to the town. The district average includes a spread of villages and farmland where the most exciting overnight event is a fox. Dover has the port, the shops, the late licences and the people, and a figure for the whole district was never going to look like the figure for its busiest town. The gap is still wide, though, and it's the one number here worth reading twice.
Dover's neighbourhoods average about 6,300 people per square kilometre, a proper town density rather than a market-town one. Unemployment is about 4%, and about 5% of households are overcrowded. That describes the texture of the place: close-packed, working, with not much spare room indoors. None of it explains the crime rate on its own, and it shouldn't be read as though it does.
The mix is more ordinary than the headline. Violence and sexual offences make up about 38% of recorded crime, against about 35% nationally. That category covers a wide legal range, including common assault where nobody is injured, and it is the largest almost everywhere. Anti-social behaviour accounts for about 20% here against 16% nationally, the clearest gap on the list. Shoplifting runs at about 10% against 8%, and criminal damage and arson at about 9% against 7%. Other theft, at about 5% against 7%, and public order, at about 4% against 7%, both come in below the national share. The short version: Dover has more of everything than the district, with a slightly heavier lean towards the kind of nuisance neighbours complain to the council about.
Once a crime is reported, Kent Police charges a suspect in about 16% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which ranks the force 6th of 42 in England and Wales. That is a force-wide figure for the year to May 2026, not Dover's own, and it measures what happens after a report, not how likely one is. About 36% of cases are closed with no suspect identified. Better than most forces is not the same as good, and anyone expecting the stolen bike back should keep the receipt.
Safety is Dover's weak point, and the rate, set against its own district, is too far out to argue away. Buy with that figure in front of you, not behind you.