27
Jan
2014
By Calvin at 11:18 GMT, 12 years ago
This is the headline and opening paragraphs on the Government’s Gov.UK website
‘Crime down by more than 10% under coalition government’
Crime is continuing to fall in England and Wales, statistics released today show.
Both key, independent measures of crime – police recorded crime and the Crime Survey for England and Wales – show overall crime has fallen by more than 10% under this government.
In the year to the end of September 2013, the Crime Survey of England and Wales shows overall crime fell to the lowest level since the survey began in 1981.
The survey shows a 13% fall in violence, household theft is down 19% and vandalism has dropped by 8%. Crime Prevention Minister Norman Baker said:
“Both the recorded crime statistics and the independent Crime Survey for England and Wales show that police reform is working and crime is continuing to fall. Overall, crime has fallen under this coalition government by more than 10% according to the Crime Survey and this is mirrored by the fall in police recorded crime since 2010.
“England and Wales are safer than they have been for decades with crime now at its lowest level since the survey began in 1981.”
So should you believe in the headline?
I would say “Look at the detail first”
What you need to do is check the data for yourself and make your own mind up. Fortunately all the data is available on the Office for National Statistics’ website where you will find the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales PDF report. Check it out at this link: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_349849.pdf
I’ve picked out a few ‘property theft’ category summaries from the report, which directly impinge upon our daily lives. (The underlines are mine)
Theft offences - Burglary
Despite some fluctuations from year to year, the underlying trend in domestic burglary (which involves unauthorised entry into a private dwelling) has remained fairly flat in the CSEW since 2004/05 (Figure 10). The apparent 3% fall in the year ending September 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 September 2013 are 11% lower than those in the 2007/08 CSEW (Table 11b).
Theft offences - Vehicle
The CSEW covers offences against vehicles owned by any member of the household interviewed (including company cars). Estimates of CSEW vehicle-related theft for the year ending September 2013 showed an apparent decrease of 4% compared with the previous year, though this was not statistically significant (Table 13a and 13b)1.....
....... The latest estimates indicate that a vehicle-owning household was around four times less likely to become a victim of vehicle-related theft in the year ending September 2013 survey than in 1995...
Theft from the person – CSEW and police recorded crime
The CSEW showed no statistically significant change in theft from the person based on interviews in the year ending September 2013 compared with the previous year (the apparent 2% increase was not statistically significant; Tables 15a and 15b).
The police recorded crime category theft from the person accounts for around 3% of overall police recorded crime. Latest police recorded crime figures show a 7% increase in the year ending September 2013 compared with the previous year
Other household theft – CSEW
Based on CSEW interviews in the year ending September 2013, it was estimated that there were around 1.1 million incidents of other household theft (Tables 15a and 15b), making up 14% of all CSEW crime. There was a statistically significant decrease of 19% in other household theft in the year ending September 2013 compared with the previous year. This comes after another statistically significant decrease in the year to June 2013. While these decreases may represent a change in recent trends, which have shown several years of non-statistically significant increases, it is important to note the survey can fluctuate in the short term and it is too early at this stage to conclude that this most recent fall is the start of a downward trend....
Bicycle theft – CSEW and police recorded crime
There was a statistically significant 15% decrease in bicycle theft incidents, based on CSEW interviews in the year ending September 2013 compared with the previous year (Tables 15a and 15b). This is one of the lower volume CSEW offence groups and can show large fluctuations from year to year.....
he CSEW estimate for burglary is currently 26 homes burgled in every 1,000, which is one home in every 38 along your street. Does this seem reasonable to you? And this is just the average figure. If you live in an urban area your chances of burglary will be a little higher at one home in 34. If your place is rented it is more like 1 in 24. (based British Crime Survey 2008/09 findings – See Burglary risk). In other words our chances of being burgled are very different from each other and will vary according to where we live, what we live in and who we are and even our employment status.
We should be careful then not to applaud headline claims until we have understood the data behind them and understood what the data means for us as individuals.
What the data is telling us is that the volume of crime in this country is still far too high and much more work is still required to bring it down.
Crime Survey of England and Wales Year Ending September 2013 PDF http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_349849.pdf
