28
Apr
2014
By Calvin at 11:23 GMT, 12 years ago
The most recent crime statistics have been published, which again show some very welcomed falls in many categories. Here are the headlines:
- There were 7.5 million crimes against households and resident adults in the previous twelve months, based on interviews with a nationally representative sample in the year ending December 2013. This was down 15% compared with the previous year’s survey, and is the lowest estimate since the survey began in 1981.
- The reduction of crime measured by the CSEW was driven by decreases in a range of offence groups, including: other household theft (down 25%); violence (down 22%); and vandalism (down 15%).
- The CSEW also estimated there were 762,000 crimes experienced by children aged 10 to 15 resident in the household population in the year ending December 2013. This was down 13% compared with the year ending December 2012 (877,000), although this was not a statistically significant decrease.
- The police recorded 3.7 million offences in the year ending December 2013, a decrease of 2% compared with the previous year.
- There were decreases across most of the main categories of police recorded crime. However, there are signs of increasing upward pressures in some offence types in the police recorded crime data; for example, shoplifting continued to increase (by 6% in the year ending December 2013). Continuing falls in high volume crimes such as other types of theft offences and criminal damage mean that overall levels of crime have also fallen.
- There was also a 1% increase in violence against the person offences recorded by the police but this is thought to reflect improvements in recording and possibly a rise in public reporting.
- The number of sexual offences recorded by the police increased by 17%. This continues the pattern seen in recent quarterly releases and comes in the wake of the publicity surrounding the Savile case and allegations against other celebrities which are thought to have led to a greater number of victims coming forward to report sexual offences to the police.
- In the year ending December 2013, 207,252 fraud offences were recorded by the police and Action Fraud based on reports from members of the public. This represents a volume increase of 25% compared with the previous year. This rise should be seen in the context of a move towards improved recording of fraud following a move to centralised recording by the police. In addition, there were 309,880 reports of fraud to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau from industry bodies.
In addition I’ve pulled out some other findings from the survey
Domestic Burglary
Despite some fluctuations from year to year, the underlying trend in domestic burglary has remained fairly flat in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) since 2004/05. The apparent 4% fall in the year ending December 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 December 2013 are 14% lower than those in the 2007/08 CSEW
There were 610,000 burglaries in the year ending December, so we’re still talking large volumes, which equate to 2.5 burglaries per 100 households. (There are 212 houses in my street and we had 4 last year so we were slightly below the average! – see what your rate was by visiting Police.uk –see link below.
Vehicle Crime
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 December 2013 fell by 10% compared with the previous year.
75,685 vehicles were stolen and there were 281,612 vehicles stolen from
4.3% of vehicle owning households experienced one or more vehicle related thefts
Other household theft
Despite a recent large decrease of 25% on the previous year, the latest estimate is just 1% lower than the 2007/08 survey, which was the previous lowest estimate on record. Overall, the year to December 2013 survey estimated that there were around 1.0 million incidents of other household theft
Bicycle theft
Bicycle theft in the year ending December 2013 was down 22% from the previous year. This is one of the lower volume CSEW offence groups and shows quite high fluctuations in reports year on year. Nevertheless the volume is still down 4% on the 2007-08 estimate. 3% of bicycle owning households were victims of bicycle theft in the previous 12 months
Theft from the person
The CSEW showed no statistically significant change in theft from the person based on interviews in the year ending December 2013 compared with the previous year. Estimates of theft from the person have remained fairly flat.
Vandalism and criminal damage
There were around 1.5 million incidents of vandalism of personal and household property; this was a decrease of 15% from the previous year. The victimisation rate was 0.7% of households and is the lowest estimate since 1981.
So, although there is much to rejoice about, there is still much for all of us to do to avoid becoming victims this year. Please promote and use the pages of this website to help you plan your own crime prevention activity
You know it makes sense!
Source: Office for National Statistics Crime in England and Wales (CSEW), Year Ending December 2013 http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_360216.pdf
Work out your street’s statistics to compare: http://www.police.uk/
