East Barnet is safe, and safer than the borough around it. Crime runs about a fifth below the Barnet average. Violence makes up a smaller share of it than it does nationally. Thieves here are more interested in what is parked outside or locked inside than in the people walking past. For a buyer, the main risk is to the car and the back door.
The Metropolitan Police recorded 3,347 crimes in East Barnet in the year from June 2025 to the end of May 2026, a published rate of about 75 per 1,000 residents. That rate is roughly 22% below the average for the London Borough of Barnet as a whole.
Put the two rates side by side and the gap is easy to see. East Barnet's rate is about 75 crimes per 1,000 people over that year, and Barnet's is about 97. Someone moving here from elsewhere in the borough is moving to the calmer end of it, and the slower pace of the streets matches the numbers.
This is a well-filled suburb, and a lived-in one. East Barnet averages about 5,960 people per square kilometre, unemployment was about 3% at the 2021 Census, and about 6% of households were overcrowded. In plain terms, most people here have a job, a front door and enough room behind it.
The mix of crime is where East Barnet differs from the national pattern. Violence and sexual offences make up about 25% of crime here, against about 35% across England and Wales. That category is the largest almost everywhere and includes common assault without injury. Anti-social behaviour makes up about 20% of local crime against 16% nationally. Vehicle crime is about 13% against 5%, and burglary about 9% against 4%. Other theft is about level with the national share at roughly 7%, and shoplifting is lower at about 6% against 8%. Thieves here go for cars on the street and houses with nobody in, and they mostly leave the residents themselves alone. The street-level crime map for any road being considered, read over a full year, will show whether that pattern reaches a particular front door, and that is a better use of ten minutes than reading the borough average again.
The figures on what happens after a crime is reported come from the whole Metropolitan Police, not from East Barnet's own cases. Across the force, a suspect is charged in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which places the Met 33rd of 42 forces in England and Wales on the measure. Over the same year, about 53% of the Met's cases were closed with nobody identified. That tells a buyer how likely a stolen car is to come back, not how likely it is to go missing. With the odds on catching anyone that low, a good lock and a garage do more to protect a car here than the follow-up after it is taken.
Safety is one of East Barnet's real strengths. Crime runs well under the borough rate, and what there is goes mostly after cars and houses, not people.