Yes. Lee is one of the calmer corners of its borough. Its crime rate is about a quarter below the Lewisham average. Violence makes up a smaller share of its crime than it does nationally. The bigger complaints are nuisance and cars. For inner south-east London, that is about as good as it gets.
Police recorded crime in Lee at about 90 per 1,000 residents in the year from June 2025 to May 2026, roughly 26% below the Lewisham average, with 3,999 crimes logged over those twelve months. Those are the published rates, worked out on the police's own statistical-area populations. In 1815 cavalry and foot regiments marched through Lee Green on their way to Waterloo, and even they did not stop.
Across the London Borough of Lewisham as a whole, the rate over the same twelve months was about 122 crimes per 1,000 residents, against Lee's 90. On those two numbers, a buyer moving here from elsewhere in the borough is moving to the lower end of it. The borough figure averages Lee in with everywhere else, so it carries a reputation that does not fit here.
The neighbourhood producing those figures is dense, with about 7,630 people per square kilometre on average. At the 2021 census about 4% of residents were unemployed and about 9% of households were overcrowded. That describes ordinary inner-London suburb housing, with more homes per street than a commuter town would have and fewer than the inner boroughs.
The mix looks different from the national pattern. Violence and sexual offences, a broad legal category that includes common assault without injury, make up 29% of Lee's recorded crime against 35% across England and Wales. Anti-social behaviour comes to 22% here against 16% nationally, and vehicle crime to 9% against 5%. Criminal damage and arson sit level with the national share at 7%, and public order offences come in a little under, at 6% against 7%. Lee has more of the crime that annoys residents and less of the crime that hurts them. To see what is recorded near a particular road, search the property's postcode on the police.uk crime map, which plots reported crime month by month.
What happens after a crime is reported is a separate question from how much crime there is, and it is answered for the whole force. The Metropolitan Police Service charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which places it 33rd of 42 forces over the year to May 2026. About 53% of its cases close with no suspect identified. That figure covers the whole of London, and it tells you how likely an arrest is, which is a different thing from how likely a crime is.
Safety is one of Lee's real strengths. Recorded crime is lower than in the rest of the borough, and less of it involves violence than the national pattern.