Woolwich has more crime than the borough around it, without being an outlier. Recorded crime is about an eighth higher than the Greenwich average. The mix leans towards nuisance more than harm. Violence makes up a smaller share than it does nationally. This is a busy town centre with the crime figures a busy town centre tends to have.
The police.uk figures for the year to May 2026 recorded 12,892 crimes across Woolwich, a published rate of about 133 per 1,000 residents. That is roughly 13% above the average for the Royal Borough of Greenwich. Those figures cover a full twelve months, so a single bad weekend can't account for them.
Across the whole borough, the published rate for the same year is about 118 crimes per 1,000 residents, against Woolwich's 133. The gap is real but modest. Woolwich holds the borough's main town centre, its interchange stations and its riverside, so it was always likely to sit above the borough as a whole.
Woolwich is a dense place. Its neighbourhoods average about 15,900 people per square kilometre, unemployment is about 5%, and about 15% of households are overcrowded. That describes the area these figures come from, a crowded inner-London town with plenty of people coming and going. None of it by itself explains the crime rate.
The mix of offences matters more than the total. Violence and sexual offences make up about 31% of recorded crime here, against about 35% across England and Wales. That category is broad and includes common assault where nobody was hurt. For a town whose best-known buildings are an arsenal and an artillery barracks, Woolwich has a smaller share of violence and sexual offences than the national average. Anti-social behaviour is the category where Woolwich stands out, at about 20% against 16% nationally. Vehicle crime is about 7% against 5%, and drugs about 5% against 4%. Other theft and public order offences are both about 7%, close to the national shares. Woolwich's crime is more nuisance than harm. If you are weighing a particular flat, look up its street on the police.uk crime map and then walk past it at night, because a few streets can make a real difference here.
The charge rate is a different question from whether the area is safe. The Metropolitan Police Service charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, and ranks 33rd of 42 forces on that measure over the year to May 2026. About 53% of its cases close with nobody identified. These are force-wide figures for the whole of London, and they show how often a reported crime ends with a charge, not how much crime happens in Woolwich.
Woolwich is middling for safety: busier and a little more troublesome than the rest of the borough, and less violent than its reputation implies. Most of what gets reported is noise and nuisance.