Less safe than the county it sits in, and the gap is real rather than rhetorical. About 93 crimes per thousand residents, against roughly 74 across Cornwall. Around a quarter above the county rate. Just under three thousand recorded offences in twelve months. This is the one part of the town's record that the coastline cannot argue away.
Police recorded 2,958 crimes in the year to May 2026, and the published rate for the area over that period is about 93 per 1,000 residents, roughly 26% above the Cornwall average. Both are published figures rather than one worked out from the other. The rate uses its own statistical population base, so dividing the offence count by the number of people who live here produces a different and wronger answer.
The comparison is worth seeing as two numbers rather than one adjective. Cornwall as a whole sits at about 74 crimes per 1,000 residents. St Austell sits at about 93. Neither figure describes a place under siege, and the second one is still the higher of the two every time anybody checks.
For texture, this is a denser patch than the county around it, averaging about 4,030 people per square kilometre across its neighbourhoods, with unemployment at about 3% and about 2% of households overcrowded. Those are descriptions of an ordinary working town, not an explanation of the crime rate. Anyone who strings them together into a theory about why is doing something other than reading the numbers.
The mix matters more than the headline. Violence and sexual offences accounted for about 44% of recorded crime here against about 35% nationally, and that heading is a broad statutory grouping that runs from serious offences down to common assault without injury, which is why it tops the table in almost every place in the country. Criminal damage and arson made up about 11% against about 7% nationally. Anti-social behaviour, at about 15% against about 16%, is effectively in line with the country. So are the theft categories, with shoplifting at about 7% against about 8% and other theft at about 7% against about 7%. Two categories run genuinely high. The rest look like everywhere else.
What happens after you report something is a separate question, and the answer belongs to the force rather than the town. Devon and Cornwall Police charged a suspect in about 8% of cases over the same twelve months, against about 12% nationally, which places the force last of the 42 ranked. About 26% of cases closed with no suspect identified at all. That is a force-wide performance figure, decided far above street level, and it measures something different from whether your road is quiet at night. It does tell you what to expect from the follow-up call.
Safety is the weakest thing on this town's record, and there is no phrasing that softens a rate a quarter above the county. St Austell is not a frightening place to live. It is simply the measure where it finishes behind the Cornwall it belongs to, consistently and on published figures.