Barnet crime rate: below the London average, but rising

Barnet remains a lower-crime borough than most of London, and its figures are moving in the opposite direction to the capital’s. Both of those things are true at once, and quoting either without the other gives a misleading picture.

What was recorded

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In the twelve months to June 2026 Barnet recorded 29,647 offences. Violence against the person accounted for 8,427, theft 7,191, vehicle offences 3,957 and burglary 2,185. Within those, shoplifting was 3,393, residential burglary 1,367 and theft from a vehicle 1,856. There were three homicides.

The direction of travel

The total was up 4.1% on the previous twelve months, at a time when recorded crime across London fell 2.2%. Violence against the person rose 13.8% and robbery 19.4%. Burglary went the other way, down 6.2%.

How it compares

Set against population, Barnet recorded 72.6 offences per thousand residents against a London-wide figure of 99.8. That places the borough 24th of 32 by rate — in the lower third of London, though not among the very lowest.

Two comparisons are worth treating carefully. Westminster’s rate, the highest in London, is inflated by the millions of people who go there without living there, and the City of London is policed by a separate force and does not appear in these figures at all.

What the numbers do not cover

Recorded crime counts what is reported and recorded, not what happens. Where reporting rates are low — sexual offences most of all — the figures understate the reality, in Barnet as everywhere else. A rise can also reflect better recording rather than more offences, which is why the direction of a single category over a single year is weaker evidence than it looks.