Hastings is middling on crime, a shade safer than the borough around it. The rate sits a little under the local average. Shoplifting runs well above the national share. Violence runs slightly below it. Ordinary is the word, and it's rarely the one people arrive expecting.
Police recorded crime in Hastings comes to about 134 offences per 1,000 residents over the year from June 2025 to May 2026, roughly 3% below the average for the local authority. In total, 12,701 crimes were recorded over that year. Both are published figures. The rate uses its own population base, so it isn't a number to rebuild at home with a calculator and a census table.
Put the two rates side by side and the gap is small: about 134 per 1,000 for the town against about 138 per 1,000 for Hastings borough as a whole. The town and the borough are nearly the same place, so the comparison mostly confirms that the town is typical of itself. Nobody should sell a house on a four-point gap, and nobody should refuse to buy one over it either.
The texture behind those numbers is a dense town. There are about 6,800 people per square kilometre on average across its neighbourhoods, which is terraces, conversions and flats rather than detached houses behind hedges. Unemployment runs at about 3% and about 4% of households are overcrowded. That describes the kind of town Hastings is, not the reason anything happens in it.
The crime mix is closer to normal than the headline category suggests. Violence and sexual offences make up about 32% of recorded crime, against about 35% nationally. That category covers everything from serious assault to common assault without injury and is the largest almost everywhere, so a share slightly below the national one isn't a red flag. Anti-social behaviour accounts for about 18% against 16% nationally, public order about 8% against 7%, and criminal damage and arson about 7% against 7%. Other theft sits at about 5% against 7%. The one that stands out is shoplifting, at about 14% of recorded crime against about 8% nationally. The retailers are carrying that difference, not the people walking home.
After a crime is reported, the figures belong to Sussex Police, not Hastings alone. The force charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 35th of 42 forces, not a league position anyone frames. About 48% of cases close with no suspect identified. That answers whether someone gets caught, not how safe the streets are, and the two questions shouldn't be confused.
Safety in Hastings is middle of the road: an ordinary crime rate for an ordinary dense seaside town, with a shoplifting habit and not much else setting it apart.