On the published crime figures, no. The recorded rate here sits roughly 75% above the North Devon average, and that is the town's worst number by a distance. Anti-social behaviour makes up a larger share of it than the national pattern. Violence and sexual offences sit at the national share rather than above it. A small coastal town posting a big-town crime rate is the honest summary, and no amount of harbour photography changes it.
Police.uk recorded 1,416 crimes across the area in the year to May 2026, which works out as a published rate of about 128 offences per 1,000 residents. Both figures come from the same source, but they are not two versions of the same sum: the rate is built on statistical-area populations rather than the town's resident headcount, so the arithmetic will not reconcile if you try it at home. Take the rate as published and leave the long division alone.
The comparison is what gives it weight. North Devon as a whole recorded about 73 offences per 1,000 over the same twelve months. Ilfracombe records about 128. Both numbers are published, both cover the same period, and the gap between them is the entire answer to this question.
The physical texture behind those numbers is worth knowing. The neighbourhoods here average around 4,900 people per square kilometre, which is a genuinely urban density stacked into a valley in an otherwise rural district. Unemployment runs at about 3% and overcrowded households at about 2%, neither of which is remarkable. None of these things causes crime, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling a theory rather than reading a table. They simply describe a town that is denser than its postcode's reputation implies.
The mix is more useful than the headline. Violence and sexual offences account for about 35% of recorded crime here against about 35% across England and Wales, which is to say exactly the national picture. That category is also a broad statutory grouping that includes common assault without injury, so it makes every place in the country sound worse than it reads on a Tuesday afternoon. Anti-social behaviour is where the divergence sits, at about 22% locally against about 16% nationally. Criminal damage and arson run at about 9% against 7%. Shoplifting is about 8% against 8%, public order about 7% against 7%, and other theft about 6% against 7%. Four of the six biggest categories are effectively at the national share.
What happens after a report is a separate question with its own uncomfortable answer. Devon and Cornwall Police charged a suspect in about 8% of cases across the whole force in the year to May 2026, against about 12% nationally, placing the force 42nd out of 42 forces on that measure. About 26% of cases closed with no suspect identified. That is a force-wide statistic covering an enormous rural area and says nothing about any particular street here. It also measures a completely different thing from the crime rate, so the two should not be stirred together into a single feeling about the place.
Safety is the weakest part of Ilfracombe's case, and it is the one dimension where the data offers a buyer no consolation prize. Anyone moving here should treat it as a known cost of the postcode rather than a surprise waiting in the second winter.