Crime overview: year ending December 2017

Crimes against households, adults, children, businesses and society in England and Wales.

This page is part of the latest crime collection

Release date: 26 April 2018

Release frequency: Quarterly

Next release: September 2018 (provisional)

Over the long-term, crime has fallen, but some crimes have risen slightly in the previous 12 months

England and Wales, year ending December 1981 to year ending December 2017

Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, Office for National Statistics

  • Crimes involving knives or other sharp instruments rose 26% from 32,468 to 39,598.
  • Robbery has increased 33% from 55,892 to 74,130.
  • 8 in 10 people were not a victim of crime in the previous 12 months.

Crime overall has fallen in the last year

Crime estimated by the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) shows crime overall has fallen in the last year, driven by a 28% decline in computer misuse.

Most individual types of crime, including violence, have stayed at levels similar to the previous year.

When looking at the main types of crime, changes were only seen in:

  • computer misuse offences (28% decrease to 1.37 million offences), which drove the fall in overall CSEW crime
  • vehicle-related thefts (17% increase to 929,000 offences)

The increase in vehicle-related thefts is supported by a 16% increase in vehicle offences recorded by the police to 452,683 offences; a category that is well reported to the police and thought to be well recorded.

All other main types of crime measured by the survey showed no change.

Police recorded rises in knife and gun crime, mainly in large cities

Police recorded crime data showed evidence of rises in some other categories of crime, particularly the more harmful, less frequently-occurring offences.

! Warning Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics. This data can be affected by changes in policing practices and victims’ willingness to report crime.

The police figures indicate rises in the following types of crime:

  • offences involving knives or sharp instrument (up 22% to 39,598 recorded offences)
  • offences involving firearms (up 11% to 6,604 recorded offences)

These offences tend to be disproportionately concentrated in London and other metropolitan areas; however, the majority of police force areas saw rises in these types of violent crime.

More homicides, burglaries and robberies reported

Latest police recorded figures showed rises in:

  • burglary, which increased by 9% (up to 438,971 offences)
  • robbery (up 33% to 74,130 offences)
  • homicides (up 9% to 653 offences)
! Warning Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics. This data can be affected by changes in policing practices and victims’ willingness to report crime.

Latest police recorded figures show a 9% increase on the previous year.

This continues an upward trend seen in homicides since March 2014, indicating a change to the long-term fall seen in the previous decade.

These figures exclude the London and Manchester terrorist attacks in 2017. They also exclude the 96 cases of manslaughter from the Hillsborough disaster which were recorded in 2016.

! Warning Although the deaths at Hillsborough occurred in 1989, an inquest returned a verdict of manslaughter and therefore was recorded as a homicide in the year 2016.

Likelihood of being a victim has fallen considerably

Around 4 in 10 adults were estimated to have been a victim of crime in 1995; before the survey included fraud and computer misuse in its coverage.

In the year ending December 2017, just over 1 in 10 adults were a victim of crimes comparable with those measured in the 1995 survey.

Including fraud and computer misuse, 2 in 10 adults were a victim of crime in the year ending December 2017.

Crime data

This page mainly reports on data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and police recorded crime.

View all data

More information on both these sources can be found in the User guide to crime statistics for England and Wales.

Using crime data

Glossary

Firearms
Crimes include shotguns; handguns; rifles; imitation weapons such as BB guns or soft air weapons; other weapons such as CS gas or pepper spray and stun guns; and unidentified weapons. These figures exclude conventional air weapons, such as air rifles.

Fraud
Fraud involves a person dishonestly and deliberately deceiving a victim for personal gain of property or money, or causing loss or risk of loss to another.

Homicide
Includes murder, manslaughter, corporate manslaughter and infanticide.

Sharp instrument
A sharp instrument is any object that pierces the skin (or in the case of a threat, is capable of piercing the skin), for example, a broken bottle.

Violent crime
Wide range of offences including minor assaults (such as pushing and shoving), harassment and psychological abuse (that result in no physical harm), through to wounding, physical assault and death.

A comprehensive guide to crime types and definitions can be found in the User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales.

How do we measure this?

This page is part of our quarterly crime collection, which relies on two main sources of data.

Crime Survey of England and Wales
The Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) is a survey which asks people whether they have been victims of a crime over the past 12 months.

Police recorded crime
Crime that has been reported to the police, and recorded as part of police casework.

Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics.

More information on both these sources can be found in the User guide to crime statistics for England and Wales.

More information on the methodology can be found in the Crime in England and Wales Quality and Methodology Information report.

What do you need to know?

Strengths and limitations of the data
The Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) has been consistent since 1981 and is the best source to use when looking at trends over time. It is also a better measurement of crimes which are less likely to be reported to the police, such as sexual offences.

Police recorded crime is a good measure for understanding how much work police forces are carrying out. It can be affected by changes in policing practices and victims’ willingness to report crime.

Police recorded crime is not a useful way to monitor crime trends, and we do not recommend using it for this. Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics.

Time periods covered
The Crime Survey for England and Wales data on this page are based on interviews conducted between January 2017 and December 2017, measuring peoples’ experiences of crime in the 12 months before the interview.

The police recorded crime figures relate to crimes recorded by the police during the year ending December 2017 (between January 2017 and December 2017).

“Latest year” (or “latest survey year”) refers to the (survey) year ending December 2017.
“Previous year” (or “previous survey year”) refers to the (survey) year ending December 2016.

National Statistic

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More pages in this collection

Fraud

No change in the volume of fraud offences in the last year.

Released: 26 April 2018

Homicide

Homicide has increased by 9% to 653.

Released: 26 April 2018

Violent crime

Little change in levels of violent crime in recent years.

Released: 26 April 2018

Weapons crimes

Police recorded 7,130 (22%) more crimes involving weapons, with knife crime in cities rising most.

Released: 26 April 2018

More about crime

Contact us

Mark Bangs
crimestatistics@ons.gov.uk
+44 (0)2075 928689

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