Recorded Home Office figures for the year to April 2003 suggest that the incidence of violent crime has risen by 20%, while crime recorded by the police is up 7%
The number of violent crimes perpetrated in England and Wales has risen in the year to April 2003, with the total number of recorded offences standing at 991,800. The figure, unveiled by the Home Office in its annual British Crime Survey, represents a 20% increase on the previous 12 months, while a hike in so-called "stranger violence" (where the attacker is not known to the victim) is causing concern at Westminster.

Of the violent crimes recorded, 27% were classed as common assault, and 14% as harassment. According to the Home Office statistics, the number of serious violent offences rose from 32,385 to 38,291.

Just as worrying – in particular for retail security managers – is the fact that drug offences rose by 16% to 141,116 (including a 17% rise in possession and a 14% increase in trafficking).

"The recorded crime figures for drug possession and trafficking are thought to seriously underestimate the true extent of offending in those areas," claims the Home Office document. Home Office mandarins are trying their hardest to play down the figures by suggesting that they may have been "inflated" by new police counting methods (the police, as always, having produced their own figures to run alongside those of the Home Office).

Overall crime recorded by the 43 police forces across England and Wales rose by 7% to reach a total of 5,899,450 offences.

"If you were to take into consideration the new counting methods," said Home Office researcher Paul Wiles in The Times (edition dated 17.7.2003), "then there has actually been a fall of 3%". The new recording standards mean that more incidents are classed as crimes (including offences like common assault where no injury is actually sustained).

A total of 1.4 million crimes were detected by police in 2002-2003, but the detection rate of 23.5% was the same as in the previous recorded year. As the largest force in the country the Metropolitan Police Force detected 14% of all recorded crime, and Avon and Somerset 15%.

Despite Home Office assertions that crime is really falling, almost 75% of the 36,500 people questioned said they believed crime to have risen in the past two years.

"People need to feel that crime has fallen for us to make a difference," suggested Home Secretary David Blunkett. A pertinent point.

Speaking about the latest figures, Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin said: "The rise in violent crime is very worrying. It shows yet again that the Government is making no headway at all when it comes to tackling disorder. These figures will be no surprise whatsoever to the millions of people up and down the country who suffer from crime on almost a daily basis."

Source

SMT