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Crime Of The Century - A Chilling Look At Crime Statistics In The UK Recorded Crime by Offence 1997 to 2010


On the page that follows, the key offence groups have been extrapolated from the recorded crime statistics for each of the years from 1997, when the Labour administration began and the most recent complete recorded crime year up to 31st March 2010.


• The largest group of offences by far, is that containing property, Robbery, Burglary, Vehicles, Other Theft, Fraud & Criminal Damage (Volume Crime)


• This set represented 91% of total recorded crime in 1997, dropping to 70% by 2010 • The property group is most susceptible to gaming practices where a significant decline in crime can be represented For example, the 10% decrease in property crime reported in 2009/10 amounted to 320,807 fewer offences. The total of all crime displayed 364,113 fewer offences, meaning that property crime represented 88% of the total decrease in crime. This illustrates the most likely area where gaming practices would have the most significant impact, by individual force and for the 43 force total.


• The property group is also the most likely to experience “cuffing” unless an insurance claim is involved, where a crime number is often required to validate the claim. However, even this is not insurmountable, as we have experienced many cases where cases are reported as an “incident” but not subsequently elevated to a “crime” so such cases never appear in the statistics. Burglary & vehicle crime are particularly susceptible to these distortive effects.


• Burglary offences where no property is stolen are frequently either not recorded as crimes or downgraded to minor damage (and only where damage is sustained).


• Batching of crimes remains a problem, where for example 20 caravans are broken into on a site and reported as one associated offence unless arrests are made when a crime per victim is generated as this produces an equal number of detections, thus distorting the true picture. This also applies with multiple damage incidents and offences against vehicles.


• Robbery offences involve theft with force. Where a prima facie case of robbery with force is not evident, these are commonly downgraded to other thefts to lessen the seriousness of the position.


• The rise in drug offences as a percentage of total crime from 1% in 1997 to 5% in 2010 is somewhat fallacious, reflective and supportive of officer comments that PND for cannabis possession have a perverse effect on overall crime. In the main, these offences come to light as a result of police activity and are over exploited for the purpose of reflecting improvement in detections.


• The steep decline in property crime as a percentage of overall crime is synonymous with one or more of the gaming activities being present, as this is the largest group and most susceptible for the big hit activities referred to earlier in the report. As outlined, whilst this has the outward appearance of reducing crime, in fact officer time is expended on the higher yield, less important matters at the expense of crime that requires greater effort, time and skill to resolve.


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