The Worst Suburbs in Adelaide for Living: 2026 Guide

Every “worst suburbs in Adelaide” ranking you can find publishes a crime rate. South Australia does not publish one.

Not per 100,000, not per 1,000, and not at council level either. SA Police release a suburb file with seven columns, and none of them is population.

So this guide does the only honest thing available. It publishes counts, says they are counts, and shows the direction each suburb is moving, which is the part nobody else bothers with.

For the other half of the picture, see the safest suburbs in Adelaide. We are removalists Melbourne and we run the Adelaide corridor most weeks of the year.

Updated 4 August 2026. Crime figures: SA Police via data.sa.gov.au, 1 July 2025 to 31 March 2026, compared with the same nine months of 2024-25. Year-on-year percentages are our own calculation from the two published files, not figures published by SA Police.

Worst suburbs in Adelaide by recorded offences

The table below is a count of recorded offences by the suburb where the offence happened, for the nine months to 31 March 2026.

It is not a danger ranking. Large suburbs and busy precincts record more offences because more happens in them, which is exactly why the CBD sits on top.

Source: SA Police, Crime Statistics 2025-26 Q1 to Q3, via data.sa.gov.au. Reference period 1 July 2025 to 31 March 2026, nine months, compared with the same nine months of the 2024-25 file. Raw counts of recorded offences. There is no rate and no population figure anywhere in the dataset.

Six of the ten fell. Salisbury dropped 19.8 per cent, the largest proportional fall in the top ten, and Smithfield 18.9 per cent, the second largest.

Prospect went the other way at 20.7 per cent, the largest rise in the top ten, driven by property offences while its person offences fell 15.1 per cent to 90.

Morphett Vale records 331 offences against the person, the highest of any Adelaide suburb outside the CBD, and up 13.7 per cent. Oaklands Park has the second lowest count in the table at 93, behind Prospect.

How we defined Adelaide. The SA Police file has no council column and no metropolitan flag, so the split is ours. We excluded known regional centres, kept Mount Barker because the ABS places it inside Greater Adelaide, and excluded Gawler. Recompute with Gawler included and your top ten will differ.

Worth reading beside the fastest growing suburbs in Adelaide, since several of these names are absorbing the most new arrivals. Our national picture of the crime rate in Australia puts South Australia in context.

Counts, not rates: what South Australia actually publishes

This is the part that breaks most Adelaide rankings, so it is worth being precise about.

The SA Police suburb file has seven columns: date, suburb, postcode, three levels of offence description and a count. There is no population column, no rate column and no council column.

One page currently ranking for this query publishes a violent crime rate per 1,000 residents for ten named Adelaide suburbs with no agency, no link and no reference period. Another attributes its ranking to police reports from 2019 to 2022, summarised by a third party, under a 2026 headline.

The denominator problem is the deeper issue, and the CBD shows it best. A rate divides offences by residents, but the people in the Adelaide CBD on any weekday are mostly not residents.

They are workers, students, shoppers and visitors. Divide the CBD’s offences by its resident count and you produce a number that describes a population that is not there for most of the day.

The offence mix says the same thing. Property offences make up 4,325 of the CBD’s 5,871, or 73.7 per cent, which is the signature of a place with a lot of parked cars, retail floor and foot traffic.

We see the same pattern in Melbourne, which we cover in the worst suburbs in Melbourne. If you are moving into a city block, building access matters far more day to day, which is why apartment moves get booked around the lift.

Adelaide crime is falling, and no ranking page says so

Not one competing page gives a year-on-year direction for South Australia or for any suburb in it. The direction is down.

Recorded offences across the state fell from 89,997 to 89,030 over the matching nine months, a drop of 1.1 per cent. Offences against property fell 1.9 per cent. Offences against the person rose 1.3 per cent.

Our own calculation from the SA Police 2025-26 and 2024-25 files, both filtered to 1 July to 31 March so the periods match. Comparing the nine month file against a full 2024-25 financial year would show a fictitious fall of roughly a quarter.

The one state level rate available is not a suburb figure at all. The ABS puts South Australia’s assault victimisation rate at 1,241.6 per 100,000 for calendar 2024, up 5.1 per cent on 1,181.1 in 2023.

That is the whole state for a different period, and it cannot be attached to any suburb. It is also a year and a half older than the police file, and the 2025 edition is due around September.

Rising violence against a falling total is the honest summary. It is not the story a ranking of ten suburb names tells, which is why the cost of living in Adelaide moves far more people than crime does. Our moving house checklist covers what to do once you have shortlisted.

The Adelaide suburbs moving fastest in both directions

Rankings freeze a suburb’s reputation for years. The movement in the current file is where the useful information is, and it is not concentrated in the top ten.

Our own calculation from the two SA Police files, restricted to Adelaide suburbs recording at least 300 offences in the current period so a handful of extra incidents cannot produce a dramatic percentage. Counts, not rates.

Kilburn is the one to sit with. It appears on most Adelaide worst suburb lists, and its recorded offences fell 21.5 per cent, a steeper drop than any suburb in the published top ten.

Glenelg and North Adelaide fell more than 22 per cent each, and neither has the reputation that would predict it. Reputations lag the data by years in both directions.

The rises cluster in the north. Hillbank, Elizabeth Park and Para Hills all sit in the Playford and Salisbury corridor, where Salisbury itself fell almost 20 per cent over the same period.

None of that tells you what a specific street is like. Our guide to choosing a removalist and the numbers in Adelaide versus Melbourne are more useful inputs to an actual decision.

Violence or property? The Adelaide top ten is not one thing

A single total hides the most useful distinction in the file. Two suburbs with almost identical counts can describe completely different problems.

Oaklands Park and Elizabeth are four offences apart on the total. One in ten of Oaklands Park’s offences is against a person. One in four of Elizabeth’s is.

Same source and period. Property counts are the suburb total less offences against the person, since the SA Police file uses only those two top level groupings. Person share is our calculation.

Elizabeth’s 36.5 per cent rise in person offences is the largest of any suburb in the Adelaide top ten, and it is the number that deserves attention rather than its position on the list.

Prospect is the mirror image. Its overall rise of 20.7 per cent is entirely a property story, with offences against property up 27.2 per cent while person offences fell 15.1 per cent to 90.

Salisbury splits the same way in reverse. Its 19.8 per cent fall came almost entirely from property, down 25.1 per cent, while person offences edged up 3.7 per cent.

None of that is visible in a ranked list of ten names. It is visible in ten minutes with the published file, which is roughly what our moving house tips suggest spending on any suburb you are seriously considering. If the timeline collapses, we also run same day removals.

What an Adelaide suburb count cannot show you

Two things sit inside this dataset that change how you should read every number above, and neither appears on any competing page.

Sexual offences are not attributed to any suburb. All 1,985 of them in the current file are recorded against a suburb value of “not disclosed”, up from 1,792 in the prior period.

They are in the state total and in nobody’s suburb total. Any suburb ranking, including this one, is a ranking with that category removed.

SA Police changed its offence classification between the two files. The top level survived, but almost every category below it was renamed or redrawn.

Our own comparison of the category labels in the two published files. This is why every figure in this article compares totals, suburbs and the two top level groupings, and never a single offence type across the two years.

That last row is the trap. A page reporting shop theft up 26.8 per cent would be doing arithmetic across two differently drawn categories and calling it a trend.

It is also why the suburb totals hold up. A suburb total is the sum of everything, so a reshuffle inside the categories does not move it.

The practical version of all this: check the reference period on any ranking, and check whether it says count or rate. Our removalist cost guide and the packing calculator apply the same rule to prices.

Adelaide against the rest of South Australia

Here is the comparison that reframes the whole question, and no Adelaide ranking page includes it.

On raw counts, four regional centres record more offences than every Adelaide suburb except the CBD. They are much smaller places than the metropolitan suburbs they outrank.

Same source and period. These are counts, so they are not adjusted for population, and the regional centres listed are far smaller than the Adelaide suburbs they outrank. That gap is the point: without a rate, a count ranking cannot be read as a risk ranking.

Port Augusta records almost twice Salisbury’s count. Port Lincoln records half as many again as Salisbury, and rose 17.2 per cent while Salisbury fell almost 20 per cent.

Read that either way and it lands in the same place. If counts are what you rank on, Adelaide’s suburbs are not South Australia’s problem. If counts are not what you should rank on, no Adelaide list built on them means much either.

Both readings are more useful than a top ten with no date on it. If the move is Melbourne to Adelaide, our notes on the Melbourne to Adelaide drive and on how to change your rego from Victoria to South Australia cover the practical end.

Frequently asked questions about the worst suburbs in Adelaide

The questions we get most often when someone rings about an Adelaide move. For wider context see our comparison of the cost of living in Australia, and size the job with the volume calculator before you book anything.

What is the worst suburb in Adelaide for crime?

On recorded offences, Adelaide CBD leads with 5,871 in the nine months to March 2026, then Salisbury on 1,058. These are counts, not rates. South Australia publishes no suburb crime rate, so no list can rank Adelaide suburbs by risk.

Is crime in Adelaide getting worse?

Not on the latest figures. Recorded offences across South Australia fell 1.1 per cent over the nine months to March 2026, and six of the ten highest count Adelaide suburbs fell with them. The CBD dropped 8.9 per cent.

Why does the Adelaide CBD top the list?

Because it is a count, not a rate, and the CBD hosts far more people than live there. Property offences make up 4,325 of its 5,871 total, which reflects parked cars, retail floor and foot traffic rather than risk to residents.

Which Adelaide suburb improved the most?

Of the ten highest count suburbs, Salisbury fell furthest at 19.8 per cent, then Smithfield at 18.9 per cent. Outside that group, Findon fell 27.8 per cent, Glenelg 23.5 per cent and Kilburn 21.5 per cent.

Are those crime rates per 1,000 residents you see online reliable?

No official source supports them. SA Police publish counts by suburb with no population column, so a per 1,000 suburb rate cannot be derived from the released data. Treat any page quoting one without naming its source with caution.

Which Adelaide suburbs are rising fastest?

Among Adelaide suburbs recording at least 300 offences, Hillbank rose 72.3 per cent, Elizabeth Park 53.8 per cent and Para Hills 29.3 per cent. Ingle Farm rose 23.9 per cent. All three of the first sit in the northern corridor.

How current is this data, and what period does it cover?

It covers 1 July 2025 to 31 March 2026, nine months rather than a full year, compared against the same nine months a year earlier. SA Police release quarterly, so always check the period stated on any Adelaide ranking.

Picked your Adelaide suburb? Let’s get you moved

Adelaide’s worst suburb lists are mostly rates that South Australia has never published, attached to suburbs with no reference period. The official picture is a set of counts, and those counts are falling.

Use the tables to ask better questions. Check the direction as well as the number, check the period, and treat any suburb crime rate for Adelaide as invented until the page tells you where it came from.

When you have chosen, get a free moving quote and lock the price in while you sort the rest of the move.

We move households across Victoria and along the western corridor, and if your dates will not line up we can bridge the gap with storage between homes.