No, and the figures do not leave much room for argument. Recorded crime runs a long way above the Cornwall average. The twelve-month count comes to just under a thousand offences. The mix of what gets reported looks much like the national mix rather than anything exotic. Buyers who fall for the price here tend to skip this part of the homework.
Police.uk records 972 crimes in the twelve months to May 2026, which works out as a published rate of about 138 per thousand people. That sits roughly 86 percent above the local-authority average. Both numbers are published as they stand, and the rate is calculated on the statistical-area population rather than by dividing the count by the number of residents, so treating it as a sum you can check on the back of an envelope will only mislead you.
The comparison is worth seeing as two numbers rather than one adjective. Cornwall as a whole records about 74 crimes per thousand people. Pool records about 138. Same county, same police force, roughly double the rate, and no coastline to blame it on.
The odd part is that the surrounding texture does not look like the figure. Population density averages around 3,020 people per square kilometre, which is genuinely urban by Cornish standards. Unemployment sits at about 3 percent. Overcrowded households account for about 3 percent. None of that reads as a place under strain, which is a reminder that a recorded-crime rate reflects what gets reported and policed in a built-up service centre, not a verdict on the people living in it.
The category split is where the alarm usually gets manufactured. Violence and sexual offences account for about 44 percent of recorded crime here against about 35 percent nationally, and that heading is a broad statutory grouping that includes common assault without injury, so it is the largest category almost everywhere before anyone reads anything into it. Anti-social behaviour makes up about 16 percent, identical to the national share. Shoplifting is about 8 percent, matching the national figure. Other theft runs at about 10 percent against 7 percent nationally, and criminal damage and arson at about 8 percent against 7 percent. The shape of the crime is ordinary. The volume is not.
What happens after a report is a separate question, and the answer belongs to the force rather than the street. Devon and Cornwall Police charge a suspect in about 8 percent of cases against about 12 percent nationally, which places the force last of the 42 in England and Wales on that measure. About 26 percent of cases are closed with nobody identified at all. None of that makes Pool more or less dangerous, and it should never be folded into the crime rate, but it does answer the question people actually ask after a break-in, and the answer is not encouraging.
Safety is the poorest part of Pool's case by a clear margin, and it is the one area where a low price genuinely reflects something a buyer will notice rather than a bargain the market has overlooked.