Northfleet is less safe than the borough around it, and by a clear margin. Recorded crime runs at about 129 a year for every 1,000 residents. That is roughly a third above the Gravesham average. Violence and sexual offences make up about the same share as anywhere else. Criminal damage and antisocial behaviour are what push the total up.
Police.uk records 4,767 crimes in Northfleet in the year to May 2026. The published rate for the same period is about 129 per 1,000 residents, roughly 31% above the Gravesham average. A full twelve months is long enough that one bad stretch cannot have produced that gap. It is how the town has been all year.
Put the two rates next to each other and the gap is plain: about 129 per 1,000 in Northfleet against about 98 per 1,000 across Gravesham as a whole. Gravesham includes Gravesend and the villages to the south, so Northfleet is being measured against its own borough.
The town is densely built, with about 7,000 people per square kilometre on average across its neighbourhoods. The 2021 Census recorded unemployment at about 4% and about 8% of households as overcrowded. Those figures describe the kind of place this is, terraces close together and busy streets. None of them on its own explains the crime rate, and the crime rate does not explain them.
Violence and sexual offences are the largest category at 34% of recorded crime, against 35% across England and Wales. That legal category is broad, covers common assault with no injury, and is close to the national share here. The real differences are lower down the list. Antisocial behaviour is 19% of recorded crime against 16% nationally, and criminal damage and arson 10% against 7%. Other theft is 8% against 7%. Shoplifting is 8% and vehicle crime 5%, both level with the national shares. So the extra crime here is mostly damage and nuisance, the kind that wears on a street more than it endangers anyone. The police.uk map shows recorded crime month by month down to street level. Look at the road you are considering across a full year of maps, since one month can mislead.
Kent Police, across the whole county and not just Northfleet, charges a suspect in about 16% of cases, against about 12% nationally. That ranks it sixth of 42 forces in England and Wales over the year to May 2026. In about 36% of the force's cases, nobody was identified at all. That tells you how likely an arrest is once a crime has happened, which is a separate question from how likely a crime is in the first place, and on that measure Kent does better than most forces.
Safety is a weak point in Northfleet. The violence figure is ordinary for England. What sets the town apart is a higher level of damage and antisocial behaviour, and that is the kind of crime you notice on your own street.