Fitzrovia has one of the highest recorded crime rates you will find anywhere, at about 1,640 crimes per 1,000 residents. Very few people live here, and a great many pass through. Most of the crime is theft, much of it from people's pockets and bags. Violence and sexual offences make up a smaller share of crime here than they do nationally. If you live here, the main risk is being robbed on the street. Being hurt is much less likely.
In the year from June 2025 to May 2026, police recorded 30,504 crimes in Fitzrovia. The published rate is about 1,640 crimes per 1,000 residents, roughly 273% above the average for Westminster. These are official figures, and they put Fitzrovia well above its own borough.
The comparison is with Westminster as a whole, where the published rate is about 440 crimes per 1,000 residents. Westminster already includes the West End, so Fitzrovia's rate of about 1,640 is high even next to a borough that is used to high numbers.
Fitzrovia is a very crowded place, with an average of about 14,300 residents per square kilometre. Unemployment is about 3%, and about 7% of households are overcrowded. Those figures describe the neighbourhood, but none of them explains the crime rate. A district with almost full employment and modest overcrowding would not produce this rate from its residents alone. The volume comes from the crowds that pass through it.
The Metropolitan Police's categories for the same twelve months show what kind of crime it is. Theft from the person accounts for 31% of recorded crime here, against 2% across England and Wales. Other theft accounts for 23% against 7%. Shoplifting is 11% here and 8% nationally, and robbery 4% against 1%. Violence and sexual offences, a broad legal category that includes assault without injury, make up 10% of crime here against 35% nationally. Anti-social behaviour is 9% against 16%. So the high rate is mostly theft, and violence is a much smaller part of it than in most places. To see what happens on a particular street, look up its postcode on the police's online crime map and walk down it on a weekday evening.
What happens after a crime is reported depends on the force, not the neighbourhood. Over the same year, the Metropolitan Police charged someone in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally. That ranks it 33rd of 42 forces. In about 53% of the Met's cases, the investigation was closed with no suspect identified. That figure covers all of London, not Fitzrovia, and it measures what happens after a crime, not how likely you are to be a victim. For a stolen phone, the realistic expectation is a crime reference number for your insurance claim.
Fitzrovia is not a safe area by its own published figures, and it is one of the least safe places in this part of London. The danger is mostly to your belongings in a crowd, not to you personally, but the rate is high enough that you will need to live with it day to day.