Crime in England and Wales: year ending December 2017

Crime against households and adults, also including data on crime experienced by children, and crimes against businesses and society.

Released date: 26 April 2018
Next release: 19 July 2018 (provisional)

This is part of the latest release | View previous releases

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.

Summary

Crime overall has fallen in the last year

Crime estimated by 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 crime

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

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.

Police recorded crime also showed rises in:

burglary, which increased by 9% (up to 438,971 offences)
robbery (up 33% to 74,130 offences)
homicides

There were 54 more homicides than the previous year, a 9% rise to 653, excluding exceptional incidents with multiple victims such as the such as the terrorist attacks in London and Manchester, and events at Hillsborough in 1989, which were recorded as homicides in last year’s figures.

Including these exceptional incidents the total number of homicides recorded by the police fell by 1% (to 688).

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.

Data

This bulletin mainly reports on data from two sources of crime data: the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and police recorded crime.

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

View all related data

Need to know

How do we measure this?

There are two main sources of data for this release:

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
Police recorded crime is 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 about these numbers?

Strengths and limitations of the data
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. The survey has been consistent since 1981 and therefore 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 crime that has been reported to the police, and recorded as part of police casework, making these figures sensitive to changes in policing practices and victims’ willingness to report crime. Therefore, an increase in the number of crimes recorded by the police does not necessarily mean that crime itself has increased. While it is good for understanding how much work police forces are carrying out, it is not a useful way to monitor trends and we do not recommend using it for exploring crime trends.

Police recorded crime is a good measurement of:

Homicide
Firearm / gun crimes
Crimes involving a weapon

Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics.

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

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

In this release:

“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

Certified by the UK Statistics Authority as compliant with it Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
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Glossary

A comprehensive guide to crime types and definitions can be found in the ONS User Guide

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.

Violence against the person
A definition under Police Recorded Crime. Includes homicide, death or serious injury caused by unlawful driving, violence with injury, violence without injury, and stalking and harassment.

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.

Use of firearms
If a firearm is fired, used as a blunt instrument, or used as a threat.

Homicide
Includes murder, manslaughter, corporate manslaughter and infanticide.

Firearm discharge admissions
Categories are: “assault by handgun discharge”, “assault by rifle, shotgun and larger firearm discharge” and “assault by other and unspecified firearm discharge.”