Yes, Hanwell is safer than the borough it sits in. Its crime rate is well under Ealing's. Anti-social behaviour makes up more of its crime than it does nationally. Violence makes up less. The worst part of the safety picture is what happens after a crime is reported.
Police.uk records crime in Hanwell at about 99 per 1,000 residents over the year from June 2025 to May 2026, roughly 17% below the Ealing average. That came to 4,268 recorded crimes over the same twelve months. Both are published figures, and the rate uses its own population base, so it cannot be worked out from the count.
Across the London Borough of Ealing as a whole, the rate over the same year was about 120 per 1,000, against Hanwell's 99. Hanwell is part of that borough figure and still comes in under it, so Hanwell is one of the areas pulling the Ealing average down.
Hanwell is a dense town, at roughly 10,900 residents per square kilometre on average. Unemployment was about 5% at the 2021 census, and about 11% of homes were overcrowded. Those figures describe the kind of neighbourhood Hanwell is. None of them explains its crime rate.
Violence and sexual offences are the largest category at about 30% of Hanwell's recorded crime, below the 35% share across England and Wales. That category is a broad legal grouping that includes common assault without injury, and it is the largest almost everywhere. Anti-social behaviour comes next at 28%, against 16% nationally. Vehicle crime is 8% against 5%. Public order offences (6% against 7%), other theft (6% against 7%) and criminal damage and arson (5% against 7%) are all close to the national pattern or below it. Compared with the national mix, Hanwell has more nuisance and car crime and a little less violence. To see where those reports cluster, look up the street you are considering on the police.uk crime map, which plots reports by month.
Once a crime is reported, the Metropolitan Police charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 33rd of 42 forces. Over the same year, 53% of its cases were closed with no suspect identified. Those figures cover the whole Met, so they tell you nothing about Hanwell's streets in particular. They tell you how likely an arrest is if you are the one reporting a crime, and the answer is not encouraging.
Safety is a real strength in Hanwell: lower crime than Ealing as a whole, a crime mix that runs more to nuisance than the national one, and a force-wide charge rate that is the weak part of the picture.