11. What’s happened to the volume of crime recorded by the police?

For many types of offence, police recorded crime figures do not provide a reliable measure of trends in all crime, but they do provide a good measure of the crime-related demand on the police.

In this section we discuss police recorded crime data in more detail, including:

how police recorded crime data have changed over time

improvements in recording practices and the impact on the number of recorded crimes

particular crimes where an increase in the number of recorded offences is due largely to recording improvements or more victims reporting, rather than a genuine rise in crime (some types of violence, public order offences, domestic abuse and sexual offences)

Police recorded crime data have changed over time

The volume of crimes recorded by the police increased between the 1980s and the early 1990s, with changes to recording rules and processes resulting in additional rises between 1998 and 2004. This was followed by a decline in the number of crimes recorded by the police during the 2000s and early 2010s. Since 2014, the total number of crimes recorded by the police have increased. Whilst year-on-year increases have grown in recent years, the latest increase (7%; Figure 15) is smaller than the previous year (14%).

Figure 15: The volume of police recorded crime has increased over recent years England and Wales, year ending December 1981 to year ending September 2018 Source: Home Office – Police recorded crime Notes: Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics. From the year ending March 2012 onwards, police recorded crime data have included offences from additional sources of fraud data. Some forces have revised their data and police recorded crime totals may not agree with those previously published. Download this chart Figure 15: The volume of police recorded crime has increased over recent years Image .csv .xls

Rises seen over recent years reflect a combination of factors, which vary for different crime types, and include:

continuing improvements to recording processes and practices

more victims reporting crime

genuine increases in crime

These factors are believed to have the largest impact on violent and sexual offences, as evidenced by Crime-recording: making the victim count, published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) in November 2014. This report showed that violence against the person and sexual offences had the highest under-recording rates nationally (33% and 26%, respectively).

In the rest of this section we discuss police recorded crime in terms of: violent crime, public order offences, domestic abuse, and sexual offences.

Recording improvements have had a big impact on police recorded violence

Interpreting trends in police recorded violence is difficult. Ongoing work by police forces over the last three years to improve crime-recording practices has driven an increase in recorded violence against the person offences. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the improvements have had a larger effect on relatively less harmful types of violent crime and less impact on more harmful subcategories, such as homicide and violent offences involving weapons.

In 2014, HMICFRS found that violent offences were more prone than other offences to subjective judgement about whether to record a crime. Since then, these offences have been one of the three main categories of crime focused on in the subsequent rolling programme of HMICFRS inspections.

Figure 16: The volume of violent crime being recorded by the police has increased over the last few years England and Wales, year ending March 2003 to year ending September 2018 Source: Home Office – Police recorded crime Notes: Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics. Data on homicide and death or serious injury – unlawful driving data are not included in this figure due to the relatively low number of offences. Download this chart Figure 16: The volume of violent crime being recorded by the police has increased over the last few years Image .csv .xls

Evidence of improvements in recording since 2014 can be found in the more recent Crime Data Integrity (CDI) inspections carried out by HMICFRS1 in the last two years. Findings from the 30 inspections suggest that crime recording practices by police forces in England and Wales are, in general, improving. Five of the forces who received a rating of “inadequate” at initial assessment have since been re-inspected and their ratings improved (two forces to “outstanding”, two forces to “good” and one force to “requires improvement”). However, the level and speed of improvement varies across the country and some forces have further work to do to ensure reports of crime, in particular violent crime, are recorded correctly.

It is therefore likely that the increases in police recorded violence as a result of improved recording could continue for some time. It is also possible that there have been some genuine increases in crime among the less serious categories at the same time as ongoing improvements to recording. Further CDI inspection reports will be published periodically as the programme continues.

HMICFRS have recently published their annual report, State of Policing: The Annual Assessment of Policing in England and Wales 2017. This summarises the progress of police forces to improve their recording practices, based on the ongoing CDI programme.

Larger increase in violence without injury than violence with injury

The “violence without injury” subcategory accounted for 41% of all violence recorded by the police and showed a larger increase in the latest year to September 2018 (up 19% to 638,894 offences), than the “violence with injury” subcategory (up 8% to 533,248 offences; Figure 16).

Almost 9 in 10 “violence without injury” offences2 recorded by the police in the year ending September 2018 were classified as assaults without injury3 (87%; 553,160 offences). This category showed a 19% increase (of 89,305 offences) compared with the previous year, which contributed to 86% of the increase in “violence without injury” offences. Smaller increases were seen in:

threats to kill (up 7,418 offences; 7% of the increase)

cruelty to children or young persons (up 2,419 offences; 2% of the increase)

assault without injury on a constable (up 1,799 offences; 2% of the increase)

Most of the 8% increase in the “violence with injury” subcategory was a result of an increase in assault with injury (70% of the increase). Assaults with injury on a constable accounted for 16% of the increase (up 6,320 offences) and assault with intent to cause serious harm accounted for a further 12% of the increase (up 4,831 offences).

There was a decrease evident in attempted murder offences in the latest year (down 16% to 1,040 offences). This is due to the large number of attempted murder offences recorded in the comparator year due to the Manchester (235 offences) and London terror attacks (59 offences). In the year ending September 2018, there were 43 offences recorded in relation to the terrorist-related incident at Parsons Green Underground station. Excluding terrorist incidents from both years, the number of attempted murder offences recorded by the police increased by 6% in the latest year.

Stalking and harassment accounted for over one-third of the increase in violence

The stalking and harassment4 subcategory rose by 41% compared with the previous year (Figure 16). This accounted for 43% of the change in violence recorded by the police (a volume increase of 108,709 offences). It is likely that recording improvements are an important factor in this rise, particularly in relation to malicious communication offences due to improved compliance in recording of these new offences over time.

From April 2018, a change to the Home Office Counting Rules meant that the offence of stalking or harassment will be recorded in addition to the most serious additional offence involving the same victim and offender. This change has been a large driver in the increase in stalking and harassment offences recorded by police in the last year. It is likely that the number of such offences recorded will continue to increase until the rule changes have bedded-in across all forces.

The latest joint inspection5 conducted by HMICFRS and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) found that stalking was not always recorded accurately by the police and in some of these cases, stalking was recorded as harassment. These findings suggest we cannot currently be confident about the accuracy of the recorded crime figures for the separate categories of stalking or harassment.

Rise in violence in all police force areas

All police forces recorded a rise in violence in the latest year to September 2018 compared with the previous year. Changes in violence varied by police force area, ranging from an increase of 1.0% to 63.2% in the last year (Table P1).

It is important to bear in mind that these increases will reflect recording improvements and the extent of such effects differs across police forces (Tables P1 and P2).

Public order offences show increases

Public order offences cover a range of incidents including “causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress”. These offences are not covered by the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and can be influenced by changes in police activity and recording practices. Public order offences increased by 24% in the latest year following a 44% increase in the previous year. The rise in public order offences is due largely to an increase of 28% in recorded offences of “Public fear, alarm, and distress” (to 321,041 offences). This accounts for approximately three in four (75%) of all recorded public order offences in the latest year.

A large part of this increase is likely to reflect improvements and changes to recording practices. In particular, we think that some incidents that would have been recorded as anti-social behaviour in past years, are now being recorded as public order offences. This accords with the consistent drop in the number of recorded anti-social behaviour offences since figures began in 2008. However, it is possible that genuine increases in public disorder may have contributed to this rise.

Police recorded domestic abuse continues to rise

A 2015 HMICFRS report concluded that recent increases in the number of domestic abuse-related crimes were due, in part, to police forces improving their recording of domestic abuse incidents as crimes. This was in addition to forces actively encouraging victims to come forward to report these crimes.

Since April 2015, crimes should be “flagged” as being domestic abuse-related by the police if the offence meets the government definition of domestic violence and abuse6.

Figure 17: The crime type of “violence against the person” has the highest proportion of domestic abuse flagged offences England and Wales, year ending September 2018 Source: Home Office – Police recorded crime Notes: Police recorded crime data are not designated as National Statistics. Data are provisional and have not been reconciled with police forces. Download this chart Figure 17: The crime type of “violence against the person” has the highest proportion of domestic abuse flagged offences Image .csv .xls

As the flagging of offences may rely on a manual intervention in the crime recording system, the quality of these data may be inconsistent across police forces and open to more variation than the underlying number of recorded offences.

In the year ending September 2018, there was an increase in the total number of domestic abuse-related offences recorded by the police (up 25% to 676,063). As well as general improvements in recording, the police may have improved their identification of which offences are domestic abuse-related and more victims may be coming forward to report these crimes. Given the different factors affecting the reporting and recording of these offences, we feel the police figures do not currently provide a reliable indication of current trends.

In comparison, figures from a self-completion module in the CSEW have shown little change in the prevalence of domestic abuse in recent years. However, the cumulative effect of these changes has resulted in a small, significantly lower prevalence for the year ending March 2018 (6.1%), compared with the year ending March 2005 (8.9%). This indicates a gradual, longer-term downward trend (Table S36).

Further analysis on domestic abuse can be found in the Domestic abuse in England and Wales: year ending March 2018 release and Domestic abuse: findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales: year ending March 2018.

New data will help us measure coercive behaviour and sexual offences against children

Included in the rise in domestic abuse-related crimes are offences of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship7. This became a new criminal offence as part of the Serious Crime Act 2015 and came into force on 29 December 2015. Of the 43 forces for which data were available, 9,053 offences of coercive control were recorded in the year ending March 20188. Data for the previous year showed that 38 forces recorded a total of 4,246 coercive control offences. This increase is likely to be due to police forces increasing their use of the new law over the last year. More information on coercive and controlling behaviour is published in the Domestic abuse in England and Wales: year ending March 2018 release.

A further change to recording practices is to flag offences where children have been sexually abused or exploited. New experimental statistics for the year ending March 2018 showed the police flagged 55,061 crimes as involving child sexual abuse9 and 15,045 as involving child sexual exploitation10. As with flagging for domestic abuse, the data quality for these figures is variable across police forces but is expected to improve over time. A breakdown of these data across police force areas is available in Other related tables.

Rises in police recorded sexual offences

There was an increase of 14% in the number of sexual offences recorded by the police in the year ending September 2018 compared with the previous year (up to 158,162; Figure 18, Table A4):

police recorded rape increased by 16% (to 59,698 offences)

other sexual offences increased by 13% (to 101,464 offences)

the increase in sexual offences against children11 contributed around one-fifth (20%) to the total increase in the number of sexual offences recorded by the police

Figure 18: Police recorded sexual offences are at their highest volume since the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard in 2002 England and Wales, year ending March 2003 to year ending September 2018 Source: Home Office – Police recorded crime Notes: Police recorded crime are not designated as National Statistics. The Sexual Offences Act 2003, introduced in May 2004, altered the definition and coverage of sexual offences. Download this chart Figure 18: Police recorded sexual offences are at their highest volume since the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard in 2002 Image .csv .xls

A factor in the latest rise is improvements made by the police in the recording of sexual offences. More recent Crime Data Integrity inspections carried out by HMICFRS12 indicate that there is evidence of improvements in the recording of sexual offences made by forces since 2014. However, the level of improvement varies between forces and some have further work to do to ensure that all reports of sexual offences are recorded correctly. Therefore, the increases seen as a result of improved recording may continue for some time.

An increased willingness of victims to come forward and report these crimes to the police is also thought to have contributed to the increase. High-profile coverage of sexual offences and the police response to reports of non-recent sexual offending are other factors that are likely to have influenced police recording of sexual offences. For example, Operation Yewtree, which began in 2012, and more recently, allegations against prominent individuals in Hollywood. Such operations are likely to have an ongoing influence on victims’ willingness to come forward to report both recent and non-recent offences.

For a subset of forces providing data to the Home Office Data Hub13, 25% of sexual offences recorded by the police in the year ending September 2018 were non-recent offences (those that took place more than 12 months before being recorded by the police). Non-recent offences increased by 11% compared with the year ending September 2017, in line with the overall increase over the same period. While non-recent offences remain an important contributor to the latest rise in sexual offences (25%), the rise was due mainly to increases in recent offences (those that took place within 12 months of being recorded by the police).

Given the different factors affecting the reporting and recording of these offences, we feel the police figures do not currently provide a reliable indication of current trends in these types of crime.

Estimates from the CSEW for the year ending March 2018 showed that 2.7% of adults aged 16 to 59 years had been victims of sexual assaults in the last year (including attempted offences), a small but statistically significant increase compared with the previous year’s estimate (2.0%) (Table S36).

This was driven by an increase in our estimates for how many women had been victims of indecent exposure or unwanted sexual touching in the last year (Table S35). From the latest survey data, we estimate that 3.8% of women aged 16 to 59 years were victims of indecent exposure or unwanted sexual touching, an increase of 1.2 percentage points compared with last year’s estimate.

More information on interpreting longer-term trends in these offences can be found in Sexual offences in England and Wales: year ending March 2017; however, this does not include the most recent statistics for the year ending September 2018. The Sexual offending: victimisation and the path through the criminal justice system release also provides more information on sexual offending in England and Wales, bringing together a range of official statistics from across the crime and criminal justice system.

Notes for: What’s happened to the volume of crime recorded by the police?