Pewsey is safe, and on paper it's quieter than the county around it. Crime runs about a fifth below the Wiltshire average. A typical year brings fewer than two hundred recorded crimes. Hardly anyone is out of work. The numbers are small enough that a single rowdy Saturday would show up in them.
Police.uk figures put Pewsey's published crime rate at about 50 per 1,000 residents in the year to May 2026, roughly 20% below the average for Wiltshire. Over the same twelve months, 190 crimes were recorded. That's a village-sized total, and the local group chat will make it sound like more, because the group chat hears about every single one.
For comparison, the rate across the Wiltshire council area was about 62 per 1,000 over the same year, against Pewsey's 50. Wiltshire isn't a high-crime county to begin with, and Pewsey sits below it.
The area itself is small and settled. Population density averages about 2,030 people per square kilometre across its neighbourhoods, unemployment is about 2%, and about 2% of households are overcrowded. That describes the kind of place Pewsey is. None of those figures explains the crime numbers on its own, and nothing here should be read that way.
Violence and sexual offences made up about 47% of recorded crime in the same year, against about 35% nationally. That heading covers a wide statutory range, including common assault without injury, and it's the biggest category almost everywhere, so the label sounds worse than what it often contains. Criminal damage and arson made up about 14%, against about 7% nationally. Anti-social behaviour was about 14%, close to the national 16%. Public order offences were about 7%, level with the national figure, and other theft about 5%, against 7%. The total is small enough that a handful of incidents can move any of these shares by several points, so this mix describes one year, not the character of Pewsey.
What happens after a report is a separate question from how much crime there is, and the answer comes from the force, not the village. Over the year to May 2026, Wiltshire Police charged a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, putting it 32nd of 42 forces. About 34% of its cases were closed with no suspect identified. None of that measures how safe Pewsey is. It tells you what to expect if the shed does get broken into.
Safety is one of Pewsey's strengths. The crime rate is below a county that's already quiet, and the only real caveat is that a small total can swing in a single year.