9.2 million crimes
Yesterday (24 October 2024), the Office for National Statistics published its report into Crime in England and Wales for the year ending June 2024. The report focuses on crime against households and people aged 16 years and over and is based on data from both police recorded crime and the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW).
The headline findings are:
Crime has generally decreased over the last 10 years with some notable exceptions, such as sexual assault. Latest CSEW estimates showed that there were an estimated 9.2 million incidents of headline crime (which includes theft, robbery, criminal damage, fraud, computer misuse and violence with or without injury) in the survey year ending June 2024. This was 18% lower compared with the 2017 survey (the earliest comparable year for CSEW headline crime, including fraud and computer misuse).
The latest CSEW estimates showed a 10% increase in the number of headline crime incidents compared with last year’s survey although the statisticians note that this increase might be partly because the previous survey reporting period (July 2021 to May 2023) still included times of COVID-19 restrictions. They conclude that it is too early to tell if this change represents a short-term fluctuation or the start of a new trend.
While most crime types did not show a statistically significant change, there were notable increases in robbery, violence with injury and consumer and retail fraud.
Crime types
Below are details on the extent of the increases in these three categories of offence. In the year ending June 2024:
- robbery returned to levels last seen before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, rising to an estimated 139,000 incidents, compared with 60,000 incidents in YE June 2023; although police recorded crime is our preferred source for robbery
- violence with injury also returned to pre-pandemic levels and increased to an estimated 562,000 incidents from around 376,000 incidents in YE June 2023
- consumer and retail fraud increased by 19%, reaching approximately 963,000 incidents
Domestic abuse, sexual assault, stalking and harassment
While over the last 10 years there has been a gradual decrease in domestic abuse, there has been an increase in sexual assault. The latest estimates from the CSEW showed no statistically significant change compared with last year. The sheer numbers of victims of these serious offences remain startling:
- 4.6% of people aged 16 years and over had experienced domestic abuse in the last year (approximately 2.2 million victims)
- 3.1% (approximately 1.5 million people) had experienced stalking
- 2.2% (approximately 1.1 million people) had experienced sexual assault
- 8.9% had experienced some form of harassment (approximately 4.3 million people; this estimate is not comparable with the previous year)
Police recorded crime
The statisticians acknowledge that although police recorded crime does not tend to be a good indicator of general trends in crime, it can give more insight into lower-volume, but higher-harm offences reported to the police, including those that the survey does not cover or capture well. Data for June 2024 showed that:
- the number of homicides decreased slightly (562 offences) compared with the previous year (578 offences)
- offences involving knives or sharp instruments (excluding Greater Manchester Police) increased by 4% (to 50,973 offences) compared with 2023 (49,187 offences); this was 2% lower than YE March 2020 (51,982 offences)
- offences involving firearms decreased by 5% (to 5,996 offences) compared with 2023 (6,327 offences)
- robbery increased by 6% (to 81,931 offences) in comparison with 2023 (77,106 offences)
- shoplifting offences rose by 29% (to 469,788 offences) compared with the previous year (365,173 offences), and is the highest figure since current police recording practices began for the year ending March 2003.
Conclusion
This increase in crime levels does, of course, put increased strain on our already buckling court, probation & prison systems.
