These are the latest figures reported by the police for the month of January 2011. If you check the website it is quite frightening!

Crimes in Metropolitan Police District
Crime type Crime count Crime rate

Total notifiable offences 66684 9.31
Residential burglary 6479 0.90
Burglary other 2570 0.36
Theft of motor vehicle 2310 0.32
Theft from motor vehicle 5969 0.83
Robbery business 271 0.04
Robbery personal 3068 0.43
Violence against the person 12733 1.78
Most serious violence 726 0.10
Anti-social behaviour 33566 4.68

Last three months trend
Area November December January
MPS 587 614 726

Annual crime count
Area 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10
MPS 0 11658 11098

Is this for the whole of London?

They appear to be for the Metropolitan Police District which equates to the whole of Greater London excluding the City. Its stats for recorded crime in an area of about 7.7million people.
Stats for SE23 are surely considerably smaller numbers.

They also appear to suggest there was zero crime in 2007/2008...see, the olden days really were better.

Crime also appears to have fallen between 2008/2009 and 2009/2010.

We should all remain vigilant and protect ourselves and our homes appropriately but let's not inappropriately portray the area as a crime hotbed.

Totally agree.

Me too.

I think the figures are surprisingly low when you consider this…

The vast population that this comes from where everyday we have billions of interactions within a complex socio-economic structure. While at the same time we all navigate our way through, at various levels, the negative growth in the economy. And a myriad of other factors that occur in this great city.

Rather than being frightening, I think it is amazing.

And to echo IWereAbsolutelyFuming's statement I believe that vigilance is one of our great defences.

Those figures were for the whole city of London.
However, no negative economy should push another human being to attack or to break into another person's house with the intention to steal. In my time, you would not steal anything. We were all law abiders and fearful of God, but nowdays things have changed. It seems that these crimes are accepted as part of a trend.
Certainly advertising the increase of the gold on media has made things worse because, when they break into a home, they go mainly for jewellery in gold and silver and no longer for high tech items, unless they are the latest fancy

When was this that London was crime free? As far as I'm aware crime has existed for as long as laws have (longer possibly).

I suspect that the biggest change in society is highly addictive drugs used by a small number of people who could not possibly afford to keep their habit going were it not for crime. This is not dissimilar from the problems of Gin in a previous era.