23
Jul
2014
By Calvin at 10:42 GMT, 9 years ago
Back in the day when crime statistics were behaving themselves you could, as a rule of thumb, estimate that a 1% rise in unemployment would lead to a 2% increase in property crimes. Therefore I, like many people, feared a return to crime increases during this period of austerity Britain, but how wrong was that!
With the latest release of crime figures showing many police services reporting their lowest level of reported crime for 25 years (Thames Valley Police is a case in point) the experts are scratching their heads! And the reductions we’re seeing aren’t paltry either; they are truly substantial when measured over the past couple of decades. Overall, the Crime Survey for England and Wales is reporting the lowest crime levels against households and resident adults since their survey began 33 years ago.
DOWN
- Violent crime is 65% lower than its peak in ’95
- Burglary down 40% in 10 years
- Car owners five times less likely to experience a vehicle crime than in ’95
- Bike theft is 43% lower than ‘95
- Household theft (includes theft from the garden) is back to 2007 levels after year on year rises in between
- Murder rate is the lowest since ‘78
- Other crimes have also fallen year on year, such as robbery and theft from the person (some of which is probably to do with better mobile phone security features)
UP
- Shoplifting is up 7%
- Sexual offences are up 20% year on year, much of which is due to a greater willingness of victims to report both historical and recent offences due to the effect of Operation Yewtree
- Fraud offences up by 17% due in part to a change of recording practices
Although I still wait to hear the experts’ answers for these crime reductions I do believe that the property crime falls are mainly due to increases in security, which have made stealing cars and breaking into homes much more difficult to achieve (so pat yourselves on the back for that one). I also think that modern, intelligence led policing methods used by our excellent police service has also had a major impact by taking out the culprits leading to their incarceration.
I’ve no doubt that the actual reasons for these large crime reductions, if they are ever identified, will be much more complicated than I may have implied, but even so this is no time to rest on our laurels. There were still 7.3 million crimes in the year ending March 2014, so there is still much to be done by us and the police.
Keep spreading the crime prevention message!
Get Reading on-line news report: http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/local-news/crime-figures-thames-valley-lowest-7483681
Crime in England and Wales: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_371127.pdf
