By Swale's standards, no. Recorded crime in Sheerness runs at nearly double the borough rate. Violence is about the same share of the total as it is anywhere else. Nuisance, damage and shoplifting take up more of it. A seaside town isn't quiet just because it's small, however the postcard looks.
Police.uk recorded 3,083 crimes in Sheerness in the year from June 2025 to May 2026. That gives a published rate of about 206 crimes per 1,000 people, roughly 96% above the local-authority average. Those are the published figures. The rate uses its own statistical-area population, so dividing the count by the town's headcount won't give the same answer, and it isn't meant to.
The Swale average over the same period was about 105 crimes per 1,000 people. Sheerness's 206 sits next to it on the same scale, which is why "above average" undersells it. The borough includes plenty of quiet villages on the mainland, and the island's main town pulls the other way.
Sheerness is a dense town, with an average of about 8,800 people per square kilometre across its streets. Unemployment is about 5%, and about 8% of households are overcrowded. Those figures describe what the place is like. They don't explain the crime rate, and they shouldn't be used as if they did. They do show a tightly packed town where a lot of life happens in public, in the town centre and along the front, and a crime map tends to pick that up.
Violence and sexual offences are the largest category at about 36% of recorded crime, against about 35% nationally. That's essentially the national pattern, and it's a broad legal category that includes common assault where nobody was injured. The categories that differ from the national picture are the smaller ones:
- Anti-social behaviour is about 20% of the total, against 16% nationally.
- Criminal damage and arson is about 11%, against 7%.
- Shoplifting is about 11%, against 8%.
Other theft (about 5% against 7%) and public order (about 4% against 7%) both come in below the national share. So Sheerness's crime is heavier on nuisance and vandalism than most places. It isn't heavier on violence than the national mix. That distinction matters more to someone choosing a street than to the headline.
Kent Police, the force covering the whole county, charges a suspect in about 16% of cases, against about 12% across England and Wales. That ranks sixth of 42 forces. This is a county-wide figure for the year from June 2025 to May 2026, not Sheerness's own. It also answers a different question from the crime rate: it tells you what happens after a report, not how likely one is. About 36% of the force's cases close with no suspect identified. If your shed gets broken into, the honest expectation is that you'll get a crime number and not much else.
Safety is Sheerness's weakest point on paper. Nearly double the borough rate is the number to weigh, and a viewing on a quiet weekday afternoon won't tell you much about it.