The crime rate in the United Kingdom was highest in England and Wales in 2024/25, at **** crimes per 1,000 people, compared with Scotland, which had **** crimes per 1,000 population, and Northern Ireland, at **** crimes per 1,000 people. During this time period, the crime rate of England and Wales has usually been the highest in the UK, while Scotland's crime rate has declined the most, falling from **** crimes per 1,000 people in 2002/03 to just **** by 2021/22. Overall crime on the rise In 2024/25, there were approximately **** million crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales. Although this was a slight decline from the previous two years, it was still far higher than during the mid-2010s. While crime declined quite significantly between 2002/03 and 2013/14, this trend went into reverse in subsequent years. While there are no easy explanations for the recent uptick in crime, it is possible that reduced government spending on the police service was at least partly to blame. In 2009/10, for example, government spending on the police stood at around **** billion pounds, with this cut to *****billion in 2013/14. One of the most visible consequences of these cuts was a sharp reduction in the number of police officers in the UK. Between 2010 and 2017, the number of officers fell by ******, although the number of officers returned to pre-austerity levels by the 2020s. A creaking justice system During the period of austerity, the Ministry of Justice as a whole saw its budget sharply decline, from *** billion pounds in 2009/10 to just **** billion by 2015/16. Although there has been a reversal of the cuts to budgets and personnel in the justice system, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the depleted service hard in 2020. A backlog of cases grew rapidly, putting a strain on the ability of the justice system to process cases quickly. In 2022, for example, it took on average *** days for a crown court case to go from offence to conclusion, compared with *** days in 2018. There is also the issue of overcrowding in prisons, with the number of prisoners in England and Wales dangerously close to operational capacity in recent years.

Recorded crime figures for CSP areas. Number of offences for the last two years, percentage change, and rates per 1,000 population for the latest year.

There were approximately 1.94 million violence against the person crime offences recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2024/25, compared with almost 2.01 million offences in the previous reporting year. The number of recorded violent crime offences in England and Wales has increased considerably in the last decade, with only around 600,000 violent crimes recorded in 2013/14. Other types of crime climbing After falling to relatively low levels in the mid-2010s, overall crime in England and Wales has been increasing at a substantial rate. From 62 crimes per 1,000 people in 2013/14, the crime rate shot up to a peak of 93.5 by 2022/23. The sharp uptick in the number of sexual offences recorded by the police accounts for part of this rise, with the number of sexual offences increasing from just over 64,000 in 2013/14 to almost 195,000 in 2022/23. While overall theft crime has gradually fallen in a similar time period, there has been a recent spike in shoplifting offences, with almost 444,000 incidents recorded in 2023/24, compared with 342,200 in 2022/23. Prisons under pressure The increase in violent and sexual crime offences, which typically result in longer sentences for offenders, has added to the problem of overcrowding at prisons in England and Wales. With prisons dangerously close to capacity in 2024, the government even released thousands of prisoners early that September. Prisons in England and Wales are also increasingly violent, for both staff and inmates, with assaults on staff reaching a high of over 2,700 incidents in the third quarter of 2024. Incidences of self-harm have also increased rapidly, from around 5,700 in early 2014 to almost 20,000 ten years later.

London had the highest crime rate among regions of the United Kingdom in 2024/25, at approximately ***** crimes per 1,000 population, followed by Yorkshire and the Humber, at ***** crimes per 1,000 people. On a more local level, the police force area with the highest crime rate in England and Wales was that of Cleveland, in North East England. Although London had the fifth-highest crime rate among police force areas, it was lower than the crime rates of the West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, and South Yorkshire police force areas as well. Is crime in the UK rising? Between the early 2000s and the mid-2010s, crime in the UK declined quite significantly. The crime rates of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland all fell during this time period. From around 2013/14, however, the crime rate in England and Wales began to rise again, approaching levels seen in the 2000s. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, crime also stopped declining at the same rate, although there was no sudden increase as seen in England and Wales. Without adjusting for population size, the overall number of crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales reached a peak of around 6.74 million offences in 2022/23, falling slightly in the two years since then. What kinds of crime are increasing? Although overall crime levels have increased, some types of crime have continued to decline. Overall theft offences for example, are far lower than in the 2000s. This is partly due to the decline in burglaries and vehicle theft offences. Shoplifting offences, by contrast, have spiked since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching a peak of over ******* offences in 2024/25. Additionally, the number of violence against the person offences surged from 2014/15 onwards, with the number of sexual offences also at far higher levels than in the recent past.

The crime rate of England and Wales in 2024/25 was ******crimes per thousand people when fraud and computer misuse crimes were included and **** when excluded. This represented one of the highest crime rates in this time period, nonetheless a decline when compared with 2022/23, when the crime rate peaked at *****, or ****, when excluding computer fraud.

Black people were over twice as likely to be arrested as white people – there were 20.4 arrests for every 1,000 black people, and 9.4 for every 1,000 white people.

Firearms, knife- and sharp-instrument offences, offences involving a corrosive substance, hospital admissions for assault with sharp objects, fraud, offences flagged as domestic abuse-related, corruption, anti-social behaviour, perceptions, and non-notifiable incidents.

With approximately 122.1 crimes per 1,000 population, Cleveland, in North East England, had the highest crime rate of all the police force areas in England and Wales in 2024/25. High crime rates are evident in other areas of northern England, such as West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester at 114.5 and 108.2, respectively. In the UK capital, London, the crime rate was 105.5 per 1,000 people. The lowest crime rate in England was in the relatively rural areas of Wiltshire in South West England, as well as North Yorkshire. Overall crime in England and Wales The number of crimes in England and Wales reached approximately 6.74 million in 2022/23, falling slightly to 6.66 million in 2023/24, and 6.59 million in 2024/25. Overall crime has been rising steadily across England and Wales for almost a decade, even when adjusted for population rises. In 2022/23, for example, the crime rate in England and Wales was 93.6, the highest since 2006/07. When compared with the rest of the United Kingdom, England and Wales is something of an outlier, as crime rates for Scotland and Northern Ireland have not followed the same trajectory of rising crime. Additionally, there has been a sharp increase in violent crimes and sexual offences since the mid-2010s in England and Wales. While theft offences have generally been falling, the number of shoplifting offences reached a peak of 530,640 in 2024/25. Troubled justice system under pressure Alongside rising crime figures, many indicators also signal that the justice system is getting pushed to breaking point. The percentage of crimes that are solved in England and Wales was just 5.7 percent in 2023, with sexual offences having a clearance rate of just 3.6 percent. Crimes are also taking far longer than usual to pass through the justice system. In 2022, it took an average of 407 days for a crown court case to reach a conclusion from the time of the offence, compared with 233 days in 2018. This is most likely related to the large backlog of cases in crown courts, which reached over 67,750 in 2023. Furthermore, prisons in England and Wales are dangerously overcrowded, with the government even releasing some prisoners early to address the issue.

There were approximately 4.96 million crime offences recorded by the police in England in 2024/25, a decrease when compared with the previous reporting year.

Data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) showing breakdowns of victimisation over time and by various demographic characteristics.

This method returns total crime rates, crime rates by crime types, area ratings by total crime, and area ratings by crime type for small areas (Lower Layer Super Output Areas, or LSOAs) and Local Authority Districts (LADs). The results are determined by the inclusion of the submitted postcode/coordinates/UPRN within the corresponding LSOA or LAD.

All figures are annual (for the last 12 months).

The crime rates are calculated per 1,000 resident population derived from the census 2021.

The dataset is updated on a monthly basis, with a 3-month lag between the current date and the most recent data.

These CSV files provide street-level crime, outcome, and stop and search information, broken down by police force and 2021 lower layer super output area (LSOA).

The Police Service of Northern Ireland does not currently provide stop and search data.

Original Data

All data published on this page is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Acknowlegement

Foto von Kyle Bushnell auf Unsplash

Historical dataset showing U.K. crime rate per 100K population by year from 1990 to 2020.

Between April 2022 and March 2023, there were 24.5 stop and searches for every 1,000 black people in England and Wales. There were 5.9 for every 1,000 white people.

Home Office statisticians are committed to regularly reviewing the usefulness, clarity and accessibility of the statistics that we publish under the Code of Practice for Statistics.

We are therefore seeking your feedback as we look to improve the presentation and dissemination of our statistics and data in order to support all types of users.

This publication provides information on the number of hate crimes from police recorded data in England and Wales from April 2017 to March 2018. The bulletin covers the extent and trends in hate crime for all forces, with additional analysis based upon more detailed data supplied by 24 police forces on the types of offences associated with hate crime.

Hate crime is defined as ‘any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic.’ There are five centrally monitored strands of hate crime:

• race or ethnicity
• religion or beliefs
• sexual orientation
• disability
• transgender identity

The publication includes information on racist incidents in England and Wales recorded by the police from April 2017 to March 2018. A ‘racist incident’ is any incident, including any crime, which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person’s race or perceived race.

Estimates from Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) on fraud and computer misuse. Also data from Home Office police recorded crime on the number of online offences recorded by the police and Action Fraud figures broken down by police force area.

These tables were formerly known as Experimental tables.

Please note: This set of tables are no longer produced. All content previously released within these tables has, or will be, redistributed among other sets of tables.

The crime rate in London was 106.4 crime offences per thousand people for the 2024/25 reporting year, compared with 105.8 in the previous year. Between 2015/16 and 2019/20, the crime rate in the UK capital increased in every reporting year. The sudden drop in 2019/20 was due to the COVID-19 pandemic causing a sharp reduction in certain types of crime, such as robbery and theft. Crime patterns in the capital Overall there were 951,803 crimes reported by the police in London in 2024/25, compared with 938,020 in the previous reporting year. Types of crime that have increased recently include violent crimes, shoplifting, and theft from the person offences. One positive is that the number of homicide offences in London has fallen to much lower levels than seen in the late 2010s. Additionally, the Metropolitan Police force area has a lower crime rate than many of the UK's other major police forces, such as West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, and South Yorkshire. Police recruitment drive ends era of cuts  The rise in crime in London happened alongside a decline in both personnel and funding for the London Metropolitan Police. Compared with 2010 for example, there were around 3,000 fewer police officers in 2018, while annual funding was reduced to around 3.3 billion pounds between 2013/14 and 2018/19, compared with 3.62 billion in 2012/13. These cuts were due to the policy of austerity that was implemented by the UK government during that time period, but this has recently been replaced by pledges to increase spending and to recruit more police. In 2024/25, the budget for the Metropolitan Police was over five billion pounds, while the number of officers in 2024 increased to around 35,310.

In 2024/25, there were 26,617 crimes against public justice recorded by the police in Scotland, the highest figure for this type of crime since 2011/12, when there were 26,635 crimes of this type recorded.

This measure will focus on the number of recorded most serious violent crimes against the resident population (per 1,000 population).

Numbers of recorded offences, and rates of offences per thousand population, by broad crime grouping, by financial year and borough. Rate is given as per thousand population, and are calculated using mid-year population from the first part of the financial year eg For Financial year 2008-09, mid-year estimates for 2008 are used. Offences: These are confirmed reports of crimes being committed. All data relates to "notifiable offences" - which are designated categories of crimes that all police forces in England and Wales are required to report to the Home Office Crime rates are not available for Heathrow due to no population figures There were changes to the police recorded crime classifications from April 2012. Therefore caution should be used when comparing sub-groups of crime figures from 2012/13 with earlier years. Action Fraud have taken over the recording of fraud offences on behalf of individual police forces. This process began in April 2011 and was rolled out to all police forces by March 2013. Due to this change caution should be applied when comparing data over this transitional period and with earlier years. Link to data on Met Police website. Crime stats on ONS website