Gillingham is safe enough to live in, but it's one of the rougher parts of Medway. Crime runs above the council average. The mix looks like most places. Anti-social behaviour runs a little hot. Kent Police charges more often than most forces. It's an ordinary town with a bit more trouble than its neighbours, and you should know that before you buy.
Police.uk records put Gillingham at about 124 crimes per 1,000 residents in the year from June 2025 to May 2026, roughly 15% above the Medway average. Over the same year, 14,335 crimes were recorded. That's a published rate, not a count divided by a headcount, and it's the figure to hold the town to.
Across the whole Medway council area, the rate for the same year was about 108 per 1,000. Gillingham's 124 against Medway's 108 is the real comparison, and it's plainer than "above average". It's also a gap no estate agent will bring up at a viewing, because "slightly more crime than the town next door" doesn't fit on a window card.
These numbers come from a built-up place. Gillingham packs in about 6,860 people per square kilometre. Unemployment is about 3% and about 5% of households are overcrowded. That's the texture of a dense town of terraces and a busy High Street, and density on its own means more people, more shops and more reports, whatever the reason behind them.
Most of the crime mix is unremarkable. Violence and sexual offences, a broad legal category that includes common assault with no injury, make up about 36% of recorded crime, against about 35% nationally. That's close enough to the national figure to be almost nothing. The bigger difference is anti-social behaviour, at about 19% against 16% nationally, alongside criminal damage and arson at about 9% against 7%. Shoplifting is about 7% against 8% nationally, other theft about 7% against 7%, and public order offences about 5% against 7%. So there's more noise and nuisance than the national pattern, and nothing more exotic than that.
What happens after a report is a separate question from how much crime there is. Kent Police charges a suspect in about 16% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 6th of 42 forces. That's a force-wide figure, not Gillingham's own. About 36% of cases across the force are closed with no suspect identified, which is the honest answer to "will they catch them". It says nothing about whether a street is safe to live on.
Safety is where Gillingham falls short. The crime is ordinary in kind and higher in amount, and a buyer should price that in rather than wish it away.