Recorded crime in central Guildford fell 12% in the year to August, with violence down 21%. Robbery rose from 35 to 50, and shoplifting stayed flat at 805.
Recorded crime in central Guildford fell by 12% over the past year. Police logged 4,957 crimes within a mile of the town centre in the 12 months to August 2026. In the 12 months before that, the figure was 5,640.
Violence and sexual offences, the biggest category, drove most of the fall. They dropped by 21%, from 2,117 to 1,662. Robbery went the other way, rising from 35 to 50.
The figures are the street-level data Surrey Police supplies to police.uk. We downloaded them through the data.police.uk API on 7 October. August 2026 is the latest month published.
The month in numbers
Police recorded 462 crimes in central Guildford in August 2026, up from 423 in July. That compares with 469 in August 2025.
| Type of crime | August 2026 |
|---|---|
| Violence and sexual offences | 152 |
| Shoplifting | 68 |
| Anti-social behaviour | 60 |
| Public order | 50 |
| Criminal damage and arson | 32 |
| Other theft | 29 |
| Drugs | 23 |
| Vehicle crime | 12 |
| Burglary | 9 |
| Other crime | 9 |
| Robbery | 6 |
| Possession of weapons | 5 |
| Theft from the person | 4 |
| Bicycle theft | 3 |
August’s 152 violence and sexual offences were the most in any month since October 2025, when there were 168. They were still well below the summer of 2025, when the monthly count ran above 200 in May, June and July.
A year of change, category by category
One month is a noisy measure, so we compared the full 12 months to August 2026 with the 12 months before that. Both periods use the same one-mile circle around the town centre.
| Type of crime | Sep 2024 to Aug 2025 | Sep 2025 to Aug 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| All crime | 5,640 | 4,957 | down 12% |
| Violence and sexual offences | 2,117 | 1,662 | down 21% |
| Shoplifting | 797 | 805 | up 1% |
| Anti-social behaviour | 629 | 634 | up 1% |
| Public order | 629 | 611 | down 3% |
| Criminal damage and arson | 422 | 307 | down 27% |
| Other theft | 361 | 340 | down 6% |
| Drugs | 187 | 169 | down 10% |
| Burglary | 102 | 73 | down 28% |
| Vehicle crime | 84 | 92 | up 10% |
| Bicycle theft | 84 | 67 | down 20% |
| Theft from the person | 71 | 41 | down 42% |
| Robbery | 35 | 50 | up 43% |
The falls are broad. Criminal damage, burglary, bicycle theft and theft from the person all dropped by a fifth or more.
Robbery is the exception. The numbers are small, so a handful of incidents moves the percentage a long way. Even so, 50 robberies in a year is a clear step up from 35.
Shoplifting: flat over the year
Shoplifting barely moved across the two years: 797 reports, then 805. The busiest single month in the data was August 2025, with 99 reports. This August had 68.
Of the 68 shoplifting reports in August 2026, police.uk lists 52 as still under investigation. Eight are closed with no suspect identified.
Where the reports are mapped
Police.uk pins each crime to an anonymised point, usually the nearest street or landmark, not the exact address. In August the most-used points in central Guildford were:
- Genyn Road, by the railway station: 52
- a point labelled “Supermarket”: 31
- a point labelled “Shopping Area”: 30
- a point labelled “Theatre/concert hall”: 25
- Chapel Street: 21
A cluster at one map point does not mean every crime happened on that spot. It means it was the nearest anonymised point.
How to read these figures
- The counts are crimes reported to and recorded by police, not every crime committed. A change can reflect more or less reporting, or a change in how crimes are recorded, as well as a change in offending.
- The one-mile circle is centred on the town centre and is approximate at its edges.
- Totals for a month can be revised when police update their records, so a later download may differ slightly.
- Anti-social behaviour is recorded as an incident type, not a crime, but police.uk counts it alongside crime.
What it means for you
- If you see anti-social behaviour or a crime that is not an emergency, report it to Surrey Police online or on 101. Use 999 if someone is in danger or a crime is happening now.
- Shops can report shoplifting online too. The figures above only count what reaches police.
- Your own street’s figures are on police.uk. Enter a postcode to see the local map and contact your neighbourhood team.
For the work going on with young people in the town’s schools, see our story on the Guildford knife crime project. We will update these figures as police.uk publishes each month.
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