Crime Statistics for Bedford, Bedfordshire, 2024

There were a total of 651 street level crime incidents in Bedford in February 2024. See where they were on the map below and broken down by categories. The largest category was Violent Crime, followed by Anti Social Behaviour.

Although violent crime represents the largest incidents category in Bedford, this category is usually the largest in any urban area. This is partly because 'Violent Crime' covers so many offences compared to say Burglary

Crime Category	Incidents
Violent Crime	208
Anti Social Behaviour	96
Shoplifting	72
Vehicle Crime	48
Public Order	45
Criminal Damage Arson	42
Burglary	38
Other Theft	31
Drugs	24
Other Crime	15
Bicycle Theft	13
Possession Of Weapons	8
Theft From The Person	6
Robbery	5
All Crime	651

Map of street level crime incidents in February 2024

Police data is divided in Policing Neighbourhoods. We have taken the 'best fit' neighbourhood that includes Bedford. This map shows if incidents are evenly distributed over the district or if there are hot spots in certain streets or areas.

Where Police data is not specific to an address for privacy reasons, most roads are represented by 1 to 2 markers or clusters. However, this should be enough to ascertain if the road you live in or are thinking of moving to, is a crime hot spot. The only exception could be where there is a large cluster of a single crime category on a street, as this could but not necessarily be related to multiple incidents at one address.

Crime incidents in neighbouring areas to Bedford

We've taken the ten nearest places to Bedford and ranked them by the number of crime incidents in each. This should allow you to see if Bedford has more crime than other surrounding areas.

Location	Crime Incidents
Bedford	651
Castle (0.44 miles)	631
South End (0.88 miles)	327
Fenlake (0.88 miles)	218
Kempston (1.39 miles)	198
Salph End (2.24 miles)	138
Brickhill (1.86 miles)	109
Harrowden (1.39 miles)	76
Cardington (2.24 miles)	64
Biddenham (1.96 miles)	51

Where are the most violent places near Bedford?

The category of crime that most concerns people is violent crime. We have taken the ten nearest place to Bedford and ranked them according to the number of violent incidents in the 'best fit' Policing neighbourhood.

Location	Violent Incidents
Bedford	208
Castle	205
South End	112
Fenlake	75
Kempston	72
Harrowden	44
Salph End	36
Brickhill	36
Biddenham	19
Cardington	18

How likely are you to be a victim of crime in Bedford?

Every two years the government publishes the Index of Multiple Deprivation. One of those domains is crime, more precisely, how likely you are to be the victim of a what is known as 'personal crime', such as muggings or burglary. The governemnt publish these statitsics down to the Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) or in simple geographic terms, a few roads. These statistics are also published on a ward level as an average of the LSOAs in that area. We have taken the average rank and converted it into a more accessble form, a score out of 100. Where the higher the score, the more likely you are in Bedford to be a victim of personal crime. Note that the following score has been generated from the 2019 statistics. At the time of writing, these have not been updated by the government during and since the COVID 19 pandemic.

How does crime in Bedford compare to surrounding wards?

We have taken the 10 nearest wards to Bedford and ranked them using our crime score based on the Index of Multiple Deprivation average rank for the ward. Bedford is ranked #2.

#	Ward	Score
1	Castle	73
2	Cauldwell	69
3	Harpur	66
4	Kingsbrook	64
5	Queens Park	63
6	Kempston North	58
7	Newnham	52
8	Kempston Central and East	52
9	De Parys	46
10	Brickhill	33
11	Bromham and Biddenham	18

Which road in Bedford has the highest level of crime?

We have used the Index of Multiple Deprivation to find the Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) in Bedford with the highest crime score. Accoding to the 2019 statistics, that is in and around Edinburgh Close.