Thousands of robberies were reported in the West Midlands last year
Police data has showed the areas which suffer the most robberies (Image: PA)
The most violent West Midlands neighbourhoods, where residents are most likely to be mugged, carjacked or forced to hand over phones, have been revealed.
Police data has showed the areas which suffer the most robberies – and people can see how much of an issue it is where they live on our interactive map below.
Last year, police recorded more than 80,000 crimes of robbery in England and Wales. That is any crime where an offender uses force or the threat of force to steal.
READ MORE: The violent Midlands streets where most serious crimes happen as hotspots named
It can include mugging (where someone is attacked and robbed on the street), robbery by intimidation (making someone think violence or force will be used to steal from them), carjacking (using force to steal a vehicle), an armed robbery or a bank robbery.
Birmingham city centre and the surrounding area is one of the worst locations in the country for violent crime.
Unsurprisingly, it’s town and city centres where violent offending is most common, with Wolverhampton and Walsall other hotspots.
Other areas which show up in darker red on the map include Handsworth, West Bromwich, Wednesbury and Bearwood.
Crime rates – the number of offences in each area for every 1,000 people living there – allow for a fairer comparison of the likelihood of being robbed in places with widely different population sizes.
In the North Central and Dartmouth Circus area of Birmingham, there were 287 robberies in 2024 – a rate of 16.6 per 1,000 people.
In the Central policing area, there were 262 robberies – 40.4 per 1,000 residents.
As with most crime types, robberies are more likely to take place in busy town and city centres than in residential neighbourhoods.
Last year, outside central London – where tourists are far more likely to be targeted than anywhere else – Leeds city centre witnessed the highest number of robberies with 365, the equivalent of one per day.
Next was the North Central & Dartmouth Circus (287) and Central (262) districts in Birmingham city centre.
However, in some busy city centres, the results may be skewed by the number of visitors.
After Leeds city centre and districts within Birmingham’s city centre, the risk of a robbery was greatest in central Bradford.
There were 133 robberies last year in central Bradford, a rate of 20 crimes for every 1,000 people, or one robbery for every 50 residents.