Wallingford is reasonably safe, though it records a little more crime than the rest of South Oxfordshire. The district around it is calm, so being slightly worse than the district still leaves the town fairly calm. Almost nobody is out of work. Hardly anyone lives in an overcrowded home. Most of the gap comes from Wallingford being a busy market town in the middle of a lot of farmland.
Thames Valley Police recorded 524 crimes in Wallingford in the year to May 2026. The published rate is about 54 crimes per 1,000 residents, roughly 10% above the South Oxfordshire average. That figure is calculated on its own population base, so the count and the rate can't be checked against each other with a calculator.
The South Oxfordshire rate for the same twelve months was about 49 per 1,000, against about 54 in Wallingford. The district is mostly villages and fields, where little gets recorded, so a town with a high street and a bridge was always going to come out a bit higher.
The neighbourhood itself is ordinary and settled. The town averages about 4,204 residents per square kilometre, which is dense for South Oxfordshire. Unemployment is about 2% and only about 2% of households are overcrowded. In 1643 a group of Parliamentary commissioners left Wallingford afraid that the castle garrison would cut their throats, so the town's welcome to visitors has improved a good deal since.
Violence and sexual offences make up about 42% of Wallingford's recorded crime, against 35% across England and Wales. The category is broad and includes common assault where nobody was injured, and it is the largest in almost every town in the country, so the figure is above the national share without being unusual. Criminal damage and arson make up about 11%, against 7% nationally, and that is the clearest gap. Anti-social behaviour is about 12%, below the national 16%. Public order and other theft are each about 8%, against 7% nationally, so roughly level. Shoplifting is about 7%, slightly under the national 8%. The overall picture is more broken windows than break-ins.
Charging a suspect is decided across the whole force, so nothing in this paragraph is specific to Wallingford's streets. Thames Valley Police charges someone in about 9% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 37th of 42 forces. About 37% of its cases are closed without anyone being identified. That tells you how likely the police are to catch whoever did it, a different question from how much crime there is. In Thames Valley the answer is not very likely.
Wallingford is about average for safety. The crime rate is a little higher than the county around it, and anyone who wanted a town with a high street and pubs has to accept the small amount of extra trouble that comes with them.