Fear of Crime
Ethnicity, victimisation and worry about crime: findings from the 2001/02 and 2002/03 British Crime Surveys Ethnicity, victimisation and worry about crime: findings from the 2001/02 and 2002/03 British Crime Surveys
The British Crime Survey
(BCS) shows that there has been a fall in overall crime in England and Wales since 1995. Between 1997 and 2002/03, there has been a 25% decrease in crime. Against this background of declining crime, there are variations in the risks of victimisation experienced by black and minority ethnic groups (BME).
This report, from the Research Development and Statistics
Directorate, indicates from the 2002/03 BCS that people from BME backgrounds were at greater risk of crime than the white majority. There had been no change between 2001/02 and 2002/03.
Title: Ethnicity, victimisation and worry about crime: findings from the 2001/02 and 2002/03 British Crime Surveys
Author: Research Development and Statistics Directorate
Series: Findings 237
Number of pages: 6
Date Published: June 2004
Key Findings
People from black and minority ethnic backgrounds were at greater risk of experiencing crime overall than the white majority for the 2002/03 BCS, but the difference disappeared after allowing for the younger age profile of the black and minority ethnic group. There had been no change for the 2001/02 BCS.
People from the black and minority ethnic groups were at greater risk of personal crime than white people but not of household crime.
Those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds were more at risk from mugging than white people.
Asian and mixed race people experienced higher levels of victimisation than white people, but for Asian people the difference was no longer apparent after allowing for age. For mixed race people the difference remained even after age, and also area lived in, had been allowed for.
People of mixed race were at greater risk of crime than all the other groups. Risk had increased significantly between 2001/02 and 2002/03 for this group.
The risk of racially motivated victimisation was higher for people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds than for white people in general.
Those with a mixed race background and black people were less likely to report an incident to the police than people from the white, Asian and 'Chinese or other' ethnic groups.
People from black and minority ethnic backgrounds were more likely to have high levels of worry about burglary, car crime and violence than white people – this was generally the case even when the type of area lived in and their experience of crime was allowed for. People of mixed race faced a higher risk of violence than Asian people but Asian people were more likely to be worried about being the victim of violence.
The BME group as a whole in England and Wales has a higher proportion of younger people than the white group, and those aged 16 to 34 are at greatest risk of crime. After allowing for age, the higher risk of victimisation facing people from BME backgrounds in 2002/03 disappeared.
When overall crime is split between household and personal crime, people in the BME groups were shown to be at greater risk of personal crime but not household crime compared with white people. This is in contrast to results for 1999, when people from the black, Indian and Pakistani/Bangladeshi groups experienced similar levels of risk for personal crime to white people.
For 2002/03, people from BME backgrounds had a significantly higher risk of personal crime even when people from a mixed race background were excluded from the calculation of the BME figure.
Worry about crime
The BCS shows that, in 2001/02 and 2002/03, people in BME groups were much more likely than white people to be worried about burglary, car crime and violent crime. Levels of worry among people in the individual BME groups were similar. The only statistically significant difference for worry about these 3 crime types was that Asian people had higher levels of worry about violence than mixed race people.
There was no change in levels of worry between 2001/02 and 2002/03 for any ethnic group. Levels of worry about violence were calculated using separate questions about 4 types of violence:
mugging / robbery
rape
physical attack by a stranger
racially motivated assault.
People in each of the BME groups were significantly more likely to be very worried about each of these types of violence than white people. For all groups, white and BME, a lower proportion were very worried about racially motivated assault than about any of the other types of violence asked about.
For the population as a whole, levels of worry about crime are generally higher in inner-city areas and for those with experience of crime.
Although a large proportion of the BME population live in inner-city areas, there is a higher level of worry about crime for all of the BME groups even after allowing for the type of area lived in. In the same way, people from each of the BME groups were generally more likely to be worried about each of the 3 main crime types than white people, even after allowing for whether or not they had been the victim of that crime type in the previous 12 months.
There was one exception to the finding that worry was higher for BME groups even after accounting for victimisation. For black people, the higher level of worry about car crime in comparison with white people was not evident once their experience of vehicle thefts had been allowed for.
PDF 79kb Last update: 06 July 2004