The release of the quarterly crime statistics show another dramatic decline in incidents. Estimated total crime levels plummeted 16% in the year to June 2014. Violence fell by 23%, criminal damage by 20% and theft offences by 12%. The news will be greeted, as is the custom, with a self-satisfied murmur from governing politicians and a chirruping chorus of cynicism from the great British public.
Crime statistics are a complex and opaque strand of quantitative social analysis. The official reports published by the Office for National Statistics are couched in caveats and caution. The nature of, and explanations for, dramatic falls in (apparent) crime rates remain heavily disputed and furiously debated. However, there are a number of claims about crime rates that can be critically appraised and, where appropriate, myth-busted once and for all.
1. Crime appears to be falling only because nobody bothers reporting them [status: myth]
There are two distinct and separate approaches to measuring crime. One is police recorded crime statistics, which (quite obviously) contain only offences that have been reported. However, when people discuss falling crime rates, they are usually referring to data produced by the Crime Survey of England and Wales (formerly the British Crime Survey). This is a huge survey of about 50,000 people that asks them about their personal experiences of violence, theft and other interpersonal crimes, irrespective of whether they reported them to police, or even whether they personally consider them to be criminal acts. Victim surveys are considered a far better guide to incidents of criminality than reports to police.
2. Crime appears to be falling only because the police fiddle the figures [status: myth]
It is certainly true that over the years police have found all sorts of excuses to keep crimes off the books, thereby helping them to meet targets. In January this year the UK Statistics Authority finally lost patience and stripped police recorded crime figures of their gold standard status as official statistics. However, the police have nothing to do with the CSEW, which in turn pays no heed to whether offences have been reported or not.
3. Crime appears to be falling only because politicians fiddle the figures [status: myth]
After decades of cynicism about the independence and reliability of official statistics, an act of parliament in 2007 placed the ONS, which publishes crime statistics, under direct control of the UK Statistical Authority, which is a non-ministerial department. The civil servants in charge answer to parliament as a whole, not to the government of the day.
4. The CSEW statistics don’t reflect all types of crime [status: fact]
The crime survey does not measure all sorts of crimes. These include crimes that do not have individual victims, such as drugs offences or distribution of obscene publications, and most significantly, perhaps, fraud and cybercrime. It is certainly possible that headlines about falling crime are concealing large increases in, for example, credit card fraud.
5. The CSEW survey misses the people who are most at risk [status: fact]
The CSEW does not capture the experiences of anyone who lives in shared institutions such as hospitals, prisons, hostels, shelters or student halls, and so fails to record crimes against some of the most vulnerable people in society. However, it is important to note that this was always true. So while the CSEW will not and cannot provide us with an accurate measure of all crimes occurring, there is little reason to believe it does not accurately reflect trends.
6. The CSEW does not record crimes against children and young people [status: myth]
Since 2010 the CSEW has included a module for young people aged 10-15. It has limited extent (it doesn’t ask about sexual victimisation, for example) but does reflect prevalent offences such as street assaults and robberies for phones or other gadgets. Last year these statistics also showed declines, from 810,000 incidents to 769,000.
7. Haven’t you seen the papers? It is murder and mayhem all the way [status: fact]
Sadly, we live in a society that still has more than enough tragedy, cruelty and horror to fill any tabloid several times over. There were still enough homicides last year to report a new one every single day of the year, with spares. However, in 2003 there were more than 1,000.
8. Crime might be falling, but violence against women is worse than ever [status: myth]
In the wake of the Jimmy Savile revelations, grooming scandals and numerous other allegations or convictions for child and adult sexual abuse, there has been a huge rise in reports to police of sexual offences. Reported rapes leapt 29% in the latest figures, with more than 22,000 reported to police last year. However, according to both the ONS and the minister, Norman Baker, this rise is almost certainly explained by a greater willingness of victims to report incidents, whether recent or historic, helped, perhaps, by some improvements in police practices at the point of report.
The detailed analysis of intimate violence is published annually in February. In 2012-13 the proportion of adult women who had experienced any sexual assault in the previous 12 months was at 2%, the lowest since records began. The number of homicides of women by current or ex-partners was 76, compared with 106 a decade earlier. In this morning’s crime survey figures, the estimated number of domestic violence incidents (with female and male victims) has fallen sharply to 261,000 – about 78% down from the historic high point in 1993 (see Table A6 here).
9. The era of austerity is creating crimes of poverty [status: probably a fact]
One of the few crimes where there appears to be a genuine rise is shoplifting, up 5% last year. It is hard to attribute this to anything other than economic crisis.
10. If you think crime is falling, you should try living round my way [status: unconfirmed]
In a country as large and diverse as the UK, there will always be some areas that buck national trends. Perhaps you are unlucky. But before you take a radical, Tebbit-esque approach to finding a safer area to live, bear in mind that even in Cumbria 376 bicycles were reported stolen last year. It’s a big, bad world out there, even if a little less bad than once it was.
