Witney is less safe than it looks. Police record about 69 crimes for every 1,000 residents there. That is roughly a third more than West Oxfordshire as a whole. Violence and public order offences are a little above the national share. Unemployment and overcrowding are low, so nothing here explains the rate in the usual way.
Thames Valley Police recorded 2,273 crimes in Witney in the year to May 2026, which works out to a published rate of about 69 per 1,000 residents. That is roughly 30% above the rate for the West Oxfordshire council area as a whole. The police's online crime map shows where those crimes are recorded street by street, so look at the streets around the house you want and not just the town total.
Over the same twelve months, West Oxfordshire recorded about 53 crimes per 1,000 residents, against Witney's 69. The district is mostly villages and small towns, and Witney is the biggest town in it, with the busiest centre. Compared with the countryside around it, the market town was always going to look worse.
Witney averages about 4,500 people per square kilometre, which is town density, well above village density. Unemployment is about 2% and overcrowding about 2%. Those figures describe a working, comfortable town with no obvious hardship in its numbers, so the crime rate needs another explanation.
The crime mix tracks the national picture closely. Violence and sexual offences make up about 42% of Witney's recorded crime, against about 35% across England and Wales. That police category is broad and includes common assault where nobody was hurt, and it is the largest category almost everywhere. Anti-social behaviour is about 15%, against 16% nationally. Shoplifting is about 10%, against 8%. Public order offences are about 9%, against 7%, and criminal damage and arson about 8%, against 7%. Other theft is about 6%, against 7% nationally. Each category is within a few points of the national figure, and the excess is mostly violence and offences in public.
Thames Valley Police charges a suspect in about 9% of cases across its whole force area, against about 12% nationally, which places it 37th of 42 forces. In about 37% of cases across the force, the investigation closed with no suspect identified. Those are force-wide figures for a very large area, and they describe what happens after a crime is reported. They say nothing about how likely a crime is in Witney. If a football club finished 37th of 42, its fans would call it a relegation battle.
Witney is below average for safety: busier and more crime-prone than the district around it, and covered by a police force that charges fewer suspects than most.