Kennington has a high crime rate, high even for the borough it belongs to. Police record around 241 crimes a year for every 1,000 residents. Lambeth as a whole comes to about 151. Theft is far more common here than in most of the country. Violence is less common than you might expect. Most of the risk is to your belongings, and there is more of it than in most of Lambeth.
In the twelve months from June 2025 to May 2026, police recorded 9,176 crimes in Kennington, a published rate of about 241 for every 1,000 residents. That is roughly 60% above the Lambeth average. The rate is calculated on a statistical population base, so dividing the count by any other headcount won't give the same figure.
Over the same year, Lambeth's own rate was about 151 crimes per 1,000 residents. The borough already includes Brixton, Vauxhall and Stockwell, so Kennington is well above an average that is itself an inner-London one.
Kennington is very densely populated, with about 19,300 people per square kilometre on average. About 5% of working-age residents were unemployed at the 2021 Census, and about 12% of households were overcrowded. These numbers describe the neighbourhood. They don't explain the crime rate, and none of them causes it on its own.
Among Kennington's largest crime categories, violence and sexual offences make up about 22% of recorded crime, against about 35% across England and Wales. That category covers everything from serious assault to common assault without injury. Theft from the person makes up about 20% here, against about 2% nationally, and that difference does most of the damage to the rate. Anti-social behaviour, at about 19% against 16%, is close to the national share. Other theft makes up about 11% against 7%, robbery about 5% against 1%, and public order about 6% against 7%. In 1377 John of Gaunt came to Kennington to escape an angry London crowd. Today's crime here is mostly about taking things from people.
What happens after a report depends on the police force, not on Kennington. The Metropolitan Police Service charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, putting it 33rd of 42 forces. About 53% of its cases close with no suspect identified. That tells you how often a report leads to someone being caught. It doesn't tell you how likely you are to be a victim. The street-level crime maps published for the Metropolitan Police area show which blocks the crimes cluster around. For a flat near one of the main roads, those maps are more useful than the district average.
Safety is Kennington's weakest point. The rate is well above Lambeth's, and the excess is mostly theft from people out on the streets.