30
Jul
2013
By Calvin at 09:25 GMT, 12 years ago
I’ve just returned from a very hot holiday visiting my friends in Northern Cyprus followed by a week in Devon helping my brother fix my Mum’s lean-to conservatory. While I’ve been away it seems a lot’s been going on and over the next few weeks I’ll be doing my best to catch up!
The first thing I missed was the release of the latest crime statistics for England and Wales, which yet again are showing a continued downward trend in both experience of crime and reports of crime to the police. However, the devil is in the detail and for those of you who are interested I’ve added a link to the PDF report so you can ponder the facts in a little more depth.
Here’s the ‘key points’ of this latest survey
- OVERALL ESTIMATE Latest figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimate that there were 8.6 million crimes in England and Wales, based on interviews with a representative sample of households and resident adults in the year ending March 2013. This represents a 9% decrease compared with the previous year’s survey. This latest estimate is the lowest since the survey began in 1981 and is now less than half its peak level in 1995.
- CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN The CSEW also estimated that there were an additional 0.8 million crimes against children aged 10 to 15 resident in the household population.
- POLICE RECORDED CRIME The police recorded 3.7 million offences in the year ending March 2013, a decrease of 7% compared with the previous year. This is the lowest level since 2002/03 when the last major change in police recording practice was introduced.
- VICTIM-BASED CRIME Victim-based crime accounted for 83% of all police recorded crime (3.1 million offences) and fell by 9% in the year ending March 2013 compared with the previous year. The volume of offences recorded in this category is equivalent to 55 recorded offences per 1,000 population.
- ‘CRIMES AGAINST SOCIETY’ Other crimes against society recorded by the police (402,615 offences) showed a decrease of 10% compared with the previous year.
- FRAUD OFFENCES In the year ending March 2013, 229,018 fraud offences were recorded by the police. This represents a volume increase of 27% compared with the previous year and should be seen in the context of a move to centralised recording of fraud.
- THEFT FROM PERSON AND SEXUAL OFFENCES Within victim-based crime there were decreases across all the main categories of recorded crime compared with the previous year, except for theft from the person (up 9%) and sexual offences (1% increase). The latter increase is thought to be partly a ‘Yewtree effect’, whereby greater numbers of victims of sexual offences have come forward to report historical offences to the police.
- CRIME DEALT WITH IN COURT There were an additional 1.0 million offences dealt with by the courts in the year ending December 2012 (the latest period for which data are available), which are not included in the police recorded crime figures. These cover less serious crimes, such as speeding offences, which are dealt with no higher than magistrates courts.
BURGLARY
It’s very important for us to note the report’s authors’ comments about burglary, in case we all get a little too excited and drop our guard!
‘Despite some fluctuations from year to year, the underlying trend in domestic burglary has remained fairly flat in the CSEW since 2004/05 (Figure 9) and the apparent 7% fall in the year ending March 2013 compared with the previous year was not statistically significant. It is too early to say whether this apparent decrease shows an emerging downward trend, though estimates for the year ending March 2013 are 9% lower than those in the 2007/08 CSEW (Table 11b).
‘As with the overall category of burglary the apparent decreases in sub-categories of CSEW burglary were not statistically significant. CSEW burglary follows a similar pattern to that seen for overall crime, peaking in the 1993 survey and then falling steeply until the 2004/05 survey.’
VEHICLE CRIME
The authors’ comments about the fall in vehicle crime are encouraging, but not surprising, because year on year older, less secure vehicles are being scrapped and replaced by much more secure models - a trend that’s going to continue for a while longer I suspect.
‘Estimates of CSEW vehicle-related theft for the year ending March 2013 showed a statistically significant decrease of 15% compared with the previous year (Table 13a and 13b). The latest estimate shows around 1 million vehicle-related thefts against the household population in England and Wales, compared with around 1.2 million in the previous year. All categories of CSEW vehicle crime showed decreases over this period, with theft from vehicles and attempted thefts of, or from, vehicles showing statistically significant decreases of 14% and 22% respectively.
‘Over the longer term the CSEW indicates a consistent downward trend in levels of vehicle-related theft, with the latest estimates being 29% lower than those observed in the 2007/08 survey, and 56% lower than the 2002/03 survey. As shown in Figure 9, the rate of reduction in vehicle offences since the mid-1990s has been striking, and a widely accepted theory is that this is in part due to improvements in vehicle security.
‘The latest estimates indicate that a vehicle-owning household was around 4 times less likely to become a victim of vehicle-related theft in the 2012/13 survey than in 1995, with around 5 in 100 vehicle-owning households being victims in the year ending March 2013 survey compared with around 20 in 100 households in the 1995 survey (Table 13a)’
If you haven’t already done so, those of you who run Neighbourhood Watch and Community Websites might like to link to this story or to the links I’ve provided below:
Although the overall trend in crime volume continues to fall we mustn’t get complacent and we still need to keep ‘em peeled. You know it makes sense!
Source: Office for National Statistics (UK): http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/period-ending-march-2013/index.html
Crime in England and Wales, Year Ending March 2013 PDF http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_318761.pdf
