Yes, Mitcheldean is a low-crime town, and lower than the district around it. Its crime rate comes in below the Forest of Dean average. About a hundred crimes are recorded in a year. Unemployment is low and homes are rarely overcrowded. The weak point is what happens after you report a crime, and that is a separate question from how safe the town is.
The published crime rate for Mitcheldean is about 37 per 1,000 residents in the year to May 2026, roughly 14% below the local-authority average. Over that year, 102 crimes were recorded in the town's neighbourhood areas. The published rate is worked out on its own statistical population, so it is the figure to use, and dividing the count by the town's headcount gives the wrong answer.
For the Forest of Dean as a whole, the published rate over the same year was about 43 per 1,000, against Mitcheldean's 37. That gap of six crimes per thousand residents is the difference between a district average and a town that sits a little under it.
The neighbourhood behind those numbers is fairly dense for a market town, at about 1,550 people per square kilometre on average across its neighbourhood areas. Unemployment was about 2% at the Census, and about 2% of households were overcrowded. None of these causes crime or rules it out. They describe a town with jobs and space, and the crime rate fits that description.
The mix comes with a warning. The totals are small enough that a few incidents move a share by several points, so this year's mix may not hold next year. Violence and sexual offences made up about 39% of recorded crime, against about 35% across England and Wales. That is close to normal for a category that includes common assault without injury and leads the list almost everywhere. Anti-social behaviour was about 22%, against 16% nationally. Criminal damage and arson was about 11%, against 7%. Other theft was about 8%, against 7%, and vehicle crime about 7%, against 5%. Public order was lower than the national share, at about 5% against 7%. In a town this size, a single bad month could change these proportions. If you want to know about one road, look up that street on the police's own crime map, where nearby incidents are plotted at street level.
The charge rate answers a different question, which is what happens once a crime is reported. Gloucestershire Constabulary charges a suspect in about 9% of cases, against about 12% nationally, over the year to May 2026, though only eight of those months were reported. That puts it 39th of 42 forces. About 33% of its cases are closed with no suspect identified. These are force-wide figures covering the whole county, so they say nothing about Mitcheldean's streets. A town with little crime matters more when the force covering it charges less often than all but three others in England and Wales.
Mitcheldean is a safe place to live. Crime is below the district rate, and the main thing a buyer has to accept is the county's charge rate.