Dursley is about as safe as the rest of Stroud District, and very slightly safer. Crime runs fractionally below the district rate. Almost nobody is out of work. Hardly any homes are overcrowded. Whether a crime here gets solved is a different question, and the answer is less comfortable.
Gloucestershire Constabulary recorded 399 crimes in Dursley in the year to May 2026, a published rate of about 45 per 1,000 residents. That's roughly 3% below the average for Stroud District. The published rate is worked out against a different population base from the town's own headcount, so dividing one figure by the other won't reproduce it. The difference from the district is real and small. The street-level crime map is worth a look for the specific street you're buying on, because those 399 crimes aren't spread evenly across the town.
Side by side, the figures are about 45 crimes per 1,000 people in Dursley and about 46 across Stroud District. A buyer who ruled Dursley out over its crime numbers would have to rule out most of the district with it.
Dursley is a compact town of about 3,400 people per square kilometre, with unemployment at about 2% and about 2% of homes overcrowded. That describes the neighbourhood, and none of those figures explains crime. A town this close to full employment, and this seldom crammed into too few rooms, has fewer of the pressures people usually blame.
The mix of offences needs handling with care, because the totals are small enough that a few incidents shift any share by several points. Over that year, violence and sexual offences made up about 38% of Dursley's recorded crime, against about 35% across England and Wales. That broad legal category takes in common assault without injury and is the largest almost everywhere. Anti-social behaviour was about 24% locally against 16% nationally, the one share clearly above the national figure. Criminal damage and arson was about 8% against 7%, shoplifting about 7% against 8%, other theft about 6% against 7% and public order offences about 5% against 7%. Most of those are within a point or two of the national pattern, and a busy few months could rearrange the list. The anti-social behaviour share is the one to keep an eye on, without reading it as a permanent feature of the town.
After a report, the picture belongs to the force. Gloucestershire Constabulary charges a suspect in about 9% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 39th of 42 forces, based on the months it reported in the year to May 2026. In about 33% of its cases nobody is identified at all. That's a force-wide figure, and the decisions are made across the county with no street-level detail, so it tells you nothing about how likely a crime is in Dursley. It tells you what happens next. Crime in Dursley is ordinary, and the chance of anyone being charged for it is below the national rate.
Safety in Dursley is middling. The town matches its district almost exactly, and the weaker part is what the county force does once a crime has been reported.