Incidence rates of crime in rural and urban areas.

Metadata

Indicators:

• police recorded violence against the person offences per 1,000 population
• police recorded sexual offences per 1,000 population
• police recorded robbery offences per 1,000 population
• police recorded domestic burglary offences per 1,000 households
• police recorded vehicles offences per 1,000 population

Data Source: ONS, Recorded crime data at Community Safety Partnership / Local Authority level

Coverage: England

Rural classification used: Local Authority Rural Urban Classification

Additional information:

• https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/recordedcrimedataatcommunitysafetypartnershiplocalauthoritylevel" class="govuk-link">Office for National Statistics recorded crime data at community safety partnership / local authority level

<p class="govuk-body">You can also contact us via Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/DefraStats" class="govuk-link">https://twitter.com/DefraStats</a></p>

These historic data tables contain figures up to September 2024 for:

1. Police recorded crime
2. Crime outcomes
3. Transferred/cancelled records (formerly ‘no-crimes’)
4. Knife crime
5. Firearms
6. Hate crime
7. Fraud crime
8. Rape incidents crime

There are counting rules for recorded crime to help to ensure that crimes are recorded consistently and accurately.

These tables are designed to have many uses. The Home Office would like to hear from any users who have developed applications for these data tables and any suggestions for future releases. Please contact the Crime Analysis team at crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gov.uk.

The areas of focus include: Victimisation, Police Activity, Defendants and Court Outcomes, Offender Management, Offender Characteristics, Offence Analysis, and Practitioners.

This is the latest biennial compendium of Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System and follows on from its sister publication Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System, 2017.

Introduction

This publication compiles statistics from data sources across the Criminal Justice System (CJS), to provide a combined perspective on the typical experiences of different ethnic groups. No causative links can be drawn from these summary statistics. For the majority of the report no controls have been applied for other characteristics of ethnic groups (such as average income, geography, offence mix or offender history), so it is not possible to determine what proportion of differences identified in this report are directly attributable to ethnicity. Differences observed may indicate areas worth further investigation, but should not be taken as evidence of bias or as direct effects of ethnicity.

In general, minority ethnic groups appear to be over-represented at many stages throughout the CJS compared with the White ethnic group. The greatest disparity appears at the point of stop and search, arrests, custodial sentencing and prison population. Among minority ethnic groups, Black individuals were often the most over-represented. Outcomes for minority ethnic children are often more pronounced at various points of the CJS. Differences in outcomes between ethnic groups over time present a mixed picture, with disparity decreasing in some areas are and widening in others.

Key findings

Victims

• The Asian ethnic group had the lowest proportion of both adults (2%) and children (5%) who had experienced personal crime in the last year. In 2018/19, both adults and children from the Asian ethnic group were half as likely to report victimisation when compared to the White ethnic group.
• A higher proportion of Black homicides were against children, 17% of Black victims were 17 or younger, compared to an average of 11% across all ethnicities. Between 2015/16 and 2017/18, Black children made up 20% of all child victims, while Black victims made up 13% of victims across all age groups.

Police Activity

• The proportion of stop and searches conducted on White suspects decreased from 75% in 2014/15 to 59% in 2018/19 and increased for all minority ethnic groups. The largest increases were from 13% to 22% for Black suspects and from 8% to 13% for Asian suspects.
• In the last five years, the proportion of stop and searches involving Black suspects in London increased from 30% to 37%, now equal to the number of White suspects searched. In 2018/19, 48% of all stop and searches (where ethnicity is known) were conducted in London, and increasingly involving a higher proportion of suspects from minority ethnic groups when compared to the rest of England and Wales.
• Black suspects had the highest proportion of arrests that resulted from stop and searches in the latest year, at 20% which has increased from 15% since 2014/15. This is driven by a higher number of stop and searches in London, where resultant arrests accounted for 22% of all arrests, compared to 5% for the rest of England and Wales. For other groups, between 6% and 13% of arrests resulted from stop and searches.
• In 2018/19, two thirds (67%) of children arrested in London were from minority ethnic groups, compared to 21% of children arrested in the rest of England and Wales. Just over half (52%) of adults arrested in London were from minority ethnic groups, compared to 22% of adults arrested in the rest of England and Wales.

Defendants

• In the latest year, the largest fall in the volume of prosecutions and convictions for indictable offences was seen in the Asian group, down by 22% and 20% respectively. Prosecutions and convictions fell by 18% and 16% for Black defendants, by 13% each for White defendants, by 8% and 10% for defendants from Mixed ethnic groups and by 7% and 14% for defendants from Chinese or Other ethnic groups.
• White defendants consistently had the highest conviction ratio for indictable offences over the last 5 years (with the exception of 2015) and was 85% in 2018. The conviction ratios for White, Asian (83%) and Black (81%) defendants have converged with each other over the last 5 years, remained constant for defendants from Mixed ethnic groups (77%) and fallen for Chinese or Other ethnic groups (75%).
• Compared to White defendants (38%), larger proportions of Asian (40%), Mixed ethnicity (45%), Black (46%) and Chinese or Other (46%) defendants were remanded in custody for indictable

List of the data tables as part of the ‘Crime outcomes in England and Wales’ Home Office release.

There are counting rules for recorded crime to help to ensure that crimes are recorded consistently and accurately.

These tables are designed to have many uses. The Home Office would like to hear from any users who have developed applications for these data tables and any suggestions for future releases. If you have any feedback, please contact the Crime Analysis team at crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gov.uk.

Related content

Crime outcomes in England and Wales statistics
Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables user guide

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/680797798c1316be7978e6cb/recrime-geo-pfa.csv">Recorded crime data geographical reference table (CSV, 21.9 KB)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6807988b148a9969d2394e5a/reccrime-offence-ref.ods">Recorded crime data offence reference table (ODS, 14 KB)

Police record crime open data, Police force area tables

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/680799613bdfd1243078e6d1/prc-pfa-mar2013-onwards-tables-240425.ods">Police recorded crime open data Police Force Area tables, year ending March 2013 onwards (ODS, 12.6 MB)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/680799ed8c1316be7978e6cd/prc-pfa-mar2008-mar2012-tabs.ods">Police recorded crime open data Police Force Area tables from March 2008 to March 2012 (ODS, 6.05 MB)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68079a4f3bdfd1243078e6d2/prc-pfa-0203-to-0607-tabs.ods">Police recorded crime open data Police Force Area tables from year ending March 2003 to year ending March 2007 (ODS, 4.79 MB)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68079bce148a9969d2394e5e/prc-subcodes-vawg-offences-mar2020-dec2024-240525.ods">Police recorded crime subcodes for selected VAWG offences, from year ending March 2020 to year ending December 2024 (ODS, 484 KB)

Police record crime open data, Community Safety Partnership tables

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68079c630324470d6a394e68/prc-csp-mar16-dec24-tables-240425.ods">Police recorded crime Community Safety Partnership open data, year ending March 2016 to year ending December 2024 (ODS, 73.5 MB)

<a class="govuk-link" href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/m

From 1 April 2012, the British Crime Survey (BCS) will be known as the Crime Survey for England and Wales to better reflect its geographical coverage.

While the survey did previously cover the whole of Great Britain, it ceased to include Scotland in its sample in the late 1980s. There is a separate survey - the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey - covering Scotland.

From 1 April 2012, National Statistics on crime previously published by the Home Office will be published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

For more information see the http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Crime+in+England+and+Wales" class="govuk-link">ONS Crime in England and Wales web page.

Queries regarding these outputs should be directed to crimestatistics@ONS.gov.uk.

Key publications

• http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/consult-bcs-ipvq-2011/hos-response-bcs-ipv-0112" class="govuk-link">Consultation on the British Crime Survey intimate personal violence questionnaire - Response from Home Office Statistics
  19 January 2012
• http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/bcs1011tech1" class="govuk-link">British Crime Survey 2010-11 technical report
  1 December 2011

More publications

• See more http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/" class="govuk-link">crime research and statistics publications
• http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index.html" class="govuk-link">Archived RDS website - for publications from before May 2010

Our work

The Crime Survey for England and Wales, previously the British Crime Survey (BCS), is one of the largest social research surveys conducted in England and Wales. It asks people resident in households about their experiences of crime in face-to-face interviews.

In the 2010/11 BCS, around 51,000 people were interviewed, that is, around 47,000 adults aged 16 or over in the main survey and a further 4,000 interviews conducted with children aged 10 to 15. Find out more about this research with children at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/science-research/research-statistics/crime/crime-statistics/bcs-10-15-year-olds/" class="govuk-link">British Crime Survey 10 to 15-year-olds.

Around 1,000 interviews were carried out in each police force area in 2010/11. The overall response rate is currently 76 per cent - among the highest for the large continuous government surveys.

The first survey, in 1982, covered England, Wales and Scotland. Scotland now has its own survey (Scottish Crime & Justice Survey), as does Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Crime & Victimisation Survey).

Technical reports

Crime statisticians produce a technical report providing information on survey design, weighting and survey response every survey year. The latest available is http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/bcs1011tech1" class="govuk-link">British Crime Survey (England and Wales) 2010-11 technical report. See the National Archives for previous technical reports.

The design of the survey has changed over the years but the core set of questions asked about victimisation experiences have remained constant.

BCS datasets

Anonymised datasets from the BCS in SPSS format are available on the http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/" class="govuk-link">UK Data Archive through the http://www.esds.ac.uk/government/" class="govuk-link">Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS). Researchers, including students, who need data for dissertations or practical work can use these datasets.

The BCS is a complex study with data organised at different levels (households, individuals and incidents) but full supporting documentation and metadata are available with access to the data. Users who need help in analysing the data can contact the http://www.esds.ac.uk/government/contact/" class="govuk-link">ESDS Government helpdesk.

Interpersonal violence: question development for the BCS

We commissioned research to review questions in the BCS relating to intimate personal violen