Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

The Government have published both the Recorded Crime Figures and the British Crime Survey for 2001/02 in a single volume. This single volume will give a complete figure of crime in the UK for the first time. The overall trend shows that the level of crime has been fairly stable over the past 12 months, with neither a significant rise nor a significant fall. The 7% rise in recorded crime is considered to be mainly due to changes in police reporting practices over the past year.

The British Crime Survey is based on a sample of 36,000 people - the largest sample ever. It shows a reduction in crime of around 2%, although this drop is not large enough to be statistically significant.

The key findings for last year are:

• Overall, crime has been stable over the last year, consolidating a period of consistent decline, which has seen crime fall by 22 per cent since 1997.

• The BCS estimate for crimes against adults living in private households, based on interviews taking place in 2001/02, is just over 13 million. This represents a decrease of 2 per cent compared with the estimate for 2000.

• The total number of crimes recorded by the police in 2001/02 was 5.5 million, an increase of 7 per cent compared to 2000/01. Changes in police recording practice mean that the underlying increase is estimated to be 2 per cent.

• Between 1999 and 2001/02, all BCS crime fell by 14 per cent, which is a statistically significant reduction. This figure includes statistically significant falls in domestic burglary (down 23 per cent), vehicle thefts (down 14 per cent) and common assaults (down 28 per cent).

• Comparing individual offence categories between 1999 and 2001/02, statistically significant falls were observed for theft from vehicle (16 per cent) and attempted thefts of and from vehicles (14 per cent). Decreases for burglary with entry (26 per cent), burglary with loss (26 per cent), attempted burglary (19 per cent), attempts with no loss (21 per cent) and other household theft (21 per cent) were also statistically significant.

• Since 1995, at each survey the BCS has reported an overall fall in crime. There has been a 22 per cent fall in crime measured by the BCS since 1997.

• The risk of being a victim of crime shows little fluctuation, suggesting that crime risks have stayed fairly stable over the last year at around 28 per cent overall.

• In 2001/02, it is estimated that the impact of recording changes was to artificially inflate the recorded crime numbers by at least 5 percentage points overall. A detailed commentary on this analysis is being published within the new volume.

• For violence against the person it is estimated that, if the impact of recording changes is taken into account, the 8 per cent increase in recorded crimes becomes a 5 per cent fall.

• These impacts are likely to be considerably larger in 2002/03, as the new NCRS is fully implemented by all police forces in England and Wales.

Download "Crime in England & Wales 2001/02" PDF 930Kb

Also published today were a number of related statistical analyses. The following can all be found on the Home Office RDS website:

• Home Office Statistical Bulletin 5/02 - International comparisons of criminal justice statistics 2000

• Family Origins: Developing groups of Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships and Police Basic Command Units for comparative purposes

• Maintaining Basic Command Unit and Crime and Disorder Partnership Families for Comparative Purposes