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Reported cases of violent crime in England and Wales rose by 4.3% to 733,000 in the year to March 2001, with robberies up by 13%.
The latter statistic – released by the Home Office as Security Management Today went to press – has been boosted by mobile ‘phone theft (which itself accounts for 40% of all robberies in designated urban areas).
Despite the rise in reported incidents of violent crime, the Home Office is quick to point out that the rate of the rise has slowed from 16% in 1999. Around 40% of robbery suspects were males aged between 14 and 19, reflecting the rise in youth crime highlighted by the British Retail Consortium (see page 7) and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens.
Commenting on the Home Office figures, Fred Broughton – chairman of the Police Federation – said that "soaring" levels of violent crime are partly due to the "Government’s move away from beat policing". Broughton told SMT: "While the police service has made significant strides in reducing burglaries and vehicle crime by concentrating its efforts on Government-led performance indicators, it could be argued that such targets have drawn the focus away from traditional patrolling."
The Home Office figures also show that the number of crimes being solved by police has reached a new low. Of the 5.1 million crimes recorded up to March this year, three out of every four crimes went unsolved. Police solved just 24% of all reported crimes in the year to March, compared with 34% in 1989.
Newly-installed Home Office Minister John Denham has rejected claims that the fall in solved crime is down to a tailing-off in police numbers over the last 13 years, pointing to the fact that changes in the rules on crime ‘clear-ups’ may have attributed to the fall.
Denham said: "We have amended the guidance for police forces on what they may regard as ‘clear-up’. We have started excluding from these figures a lot of instances that had been counted as deductions. Prison officers interviewing inmates to write off crimes is a perfect example."
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Overall numbers of recorded crime have fallen by 2.5% to 5.2 million. Recorded burglaries fell for the eighth consecutive year (by 7.8% to 863,000 offences), and theft of (and from) vehicles dropped by a substantial 7.2% to 969,000 cases.
Commenting on the Home Office figures, Home Secretary David Blunkett said: "We have had real success in tackling burglary and car crime, but this success was hard earned. A continuing area of concern is the ongoing rise in robberies. What we must all remember is the fact that there are no quick fixes for crime reduction. It’s a long-term investment on all sides."
Blunkett added that the Home Office will now publish its UK crime figures every year instead of every other year.
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