East Tilbury is one of the calmer corners of Thurrock, by a clear margin. Crime runs about a third below the borough rate. Violence makes up a slightly bigger share of a much smaller total. The one category well out of line is crime against cars. Lock it, and most of the risk is dealt with.
Police recorded 531 crimes in East Tilbury in the twelve months from June 2025 to May 2026, a published rate of about 69 per 1,000 residents. That rate is roughly 33% below the Thurrock average. A full year of figures smooths out the odd bad weekend, so the gap is a steady one.
Set side by side, the two rates are about 69 crimes per 1,000 people in East Tilbury and about 102 per 1,000 across Thurrock as a whole. Anyone who crosses East Tilbury off the list because the borough's name comes up in the wrong headlines is skipping the part of it with the lower number.
The neighbourhood is built tighter than its fields suggest. Population density averages about 6,800 people per square kilometre across its statistical areas, unemployment stood at about 3% at the 2021 Census, and about 6% of households were overcrowded. None of that explains the crime rate in either direction. It describes a compact garden village of working households, laid out by a shoe company in the 1930s and still occupied at close quarters.
The crime mix has one surprise in it. Violence and sexual offences make up about 41% of East Tilbury's recorded crime, against about 35% nationally, a broad legal category that includes common assault without injury and leads the table almost everywhere. Vehicle crime is the outlier, at about 16% of the total against about 5% nationally. Anti-social behaviour runs lower than the national share, about 12% against 16%, and criminal damage and arson slightly higher, about 9% against 7%. Public order offences account for about 5% locally against 7% nationally, and drugs about 5% against 4%. With more than half of working residents driving to work, the cars are where the opportunity is. Off-street parking and a garage that holds an actual car are worth asking about on any viewing here.
What happens after a report is a force-wide matter. Essex Police charges a suspect in about 11% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 28th of 42 forces. About 37% of cases across the force close with no suspect identified. Those numbers describe the police service for the whole county and say nothing about how likely a crime is on any street in East Tilbury, which is the question the rate above answers.
Safety is one of East Tilbury's real strengths: crime well below the borough's, and the main thing a resident needs to guard is the car on the drive.