Tottenham is about as safe as a busy inner London district gets. It sits a little above the Haringey average, nowhere near the top of anybody's worry list. What lifts its number is mostly low-level, everyday nuisance. Serious violence makes up a smaller share here than it does nationally. The reputation is louder than the rate.
The Metropolitan Police recorded about 12,590 crimes in Tottenham in the year to May 2026, a published rate of about 151 per 1,000 residents. That rate is about 12% above the Haringey average for the same twelve months. It is a published figure built on the population of the official statistical areas, so dividing the crime count by Tottenham's resident headcount will give a different number.
Set side by side, the gap is smaller than the headline makes it sound. Tottenham recorded about 151 crimes per 1,000 residents against about 135 across Haringey. In practice, that is about 16 more recorded crimes per 1,000 people than the borough as a whole.
The place itself explains some of that. Tottenham packs in about 17,400 people per square kilometre, about 6% of working-age residents are unemployed, and about one household in five is overcrowded. None of that is a cause. It does describe a dense district where a lot of people live close together and pass each other on the High Road all day, and recorded crime tends to be higher wherever that is true.
The mix is more useful than the total. Violence and sexual offences make up about 28% of Tottenham's recorded crime, against about 35% across England and Wales. It is the biggest category almost everywhere, and the category takes in common assault without injury. Anti-social behaviour comes next at about 24%, against 16% nationally. Vehicle crime makes up about 8% against 5%, drugs about 6% against 4%, and theft from the person about 6% against 2%. Other theft, at about 6%, is close to the national 7%. Phones and cars feature more than the violence headlines would suggest. For a specific street, the police's street-level crime map shows what has been reported there over the past year, and that tells you more than any district average.
After a crime is reported, the numbers are less encouraging. The Metropolitan Police charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, and that ranks it 33rd of 42 forces. In about 53% of its cases nobody is identified at all. Both are figures for the whole Metropolitan Police area, and they say nothing about how likely a crime is in Tottenham. Tottenham's oldest written fight is the Tournament of Tottenham, a comic poem from around 1400 about peasants brawling over the reeve's daughter, and nobody in it was charged either.
Tottenham comes out middling on safety. Recorded crime runs a little above the borough's, mostly nuisance and theft, and a buyer who is used to London will find it about as busy as they expected.