In the 2024/25 reporting year, West Yorkshire reported the highest violent crime rate among police force areas of England and Wales, at 47.9 violent crimes per 1,000 people.
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.
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 in 2023/24. 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 on 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 20,000, 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.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Police recorded crime figures by Police Force Area and Community Safety Partnership areas (which equate in the majority of instances, to local authorities).
In 2024/25, London had the highest homicide rate of any region of the United Kingdom, at **** homicides per million people, followed by the East Midlands at **** homicides per million people. Scotland had a homicide rate of **** homicides per million people in the 2023/24 reporting year. On a more local level, and when just looking at England and Wales, London's homicide rate was however below that of four other police force areas during this time period. Are homicides declining in the UK? When compared with the early 2000s, there are far fewer homicides across the UK. In England and Wales, the number of homicides has fallen from ***** in 2002/03, to *** in 2024/25. In Scotland, homicides fell from *** to ** in the same time period, while in Northern Ireland, there were ** homicides in 2023/24, compared with ** in 2002/23. This decline was not consistent, however, with a noticeable uptick in homicides towards the end of the 2010s, particulary in England and Wales. As whole though, homicide rates across all three legal jurisdictions in the UK are far lower than twenty years earlier. Types of crimes rising in 2025 Although homicides have fallen to relatively low levels in 2024/25, overall crime remains quite high. Types of crime that have increased substantially since the COVID-19 pandemic in particular include shoplifting which reached a peak of ******* offences in England and Wales in 2024/25. Although overall thefts have fallen, theft from the person offences (such as pickpocketing or snatching of property) reached a high of ******* offences in the same reporting year. Sexual offences also peaked in 2024/25, reaching ******* offences, compared with ****** in 2012/13.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) on violence with and without injury, and harassment, and police recorded crime on violence against the person and sexual offences.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
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.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
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.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Trends in Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) crime and Home Office police recorded crime for England and Wales, by offence type. Also includes more detailed data on crime such as violence, fraud and anti-social behaviour.
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
Since 2014, Eurostat and the UNODC have launched a joint annual data collection on crime and criminal justice statistics, using the UN crime trends questionnaire and complementary Eurostat requests
for specific areas of interest to the European Commission. The data and metadata are collected from National Statistical Institutes or other relevant authorities (mainly police and justice departments) in each EU Member State, EFTA country and EU potential members. On the Eurostat website, data are available for 41 jurisdictions since 2008 until 2018 data and for 38 jurisdictions since 2019 data (EU-27, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Turkey, Kosovo(1)), having drop the data for the United Kingdom separately owing to three separate jurisdictions England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland.
This joint data collection and other data collections carried out by Eurostat allows to gather information on:
Where available, data are broken down by sex, age groups (adults/juveniles), country of citizenship (foreigners or nationals) and other relevant variables. National data are available and for intentional homicide offences, city level data (largest cities) are available for some countries. Regional data at NUTS3 level are also available for some police-recorded offences.
Some historical series are available:
Total number of police-recorded crimes for the period 1950 – 2000
(1) under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244/99
Official statistics are produced impartially and free from political influence.
Incidence rates of crime in rural and urban areas.
Indicators:
Data Source: ONS, Recorded crime data at Community Safety Partnership / Local Authority level
Coverage: England
Rural classification used: Local Authority Rural Urban Classification
Defra statistics: rural
Email mailto:rural.statistics@defra.gov.uk">rural.statistics@defra.gov.uk
<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>
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.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Annual data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), including when and where incidents happened and the victim's perception of the incident.
This is the tenth report in an annual series combining crimes recorded by the police and interviews from the British Crime Survey (BCS) for the financial year 2010/11. Each source has different strengths and weaknesses but together they provide a more comprehensive picture of crime than could be obtained from either series alone. Additional explanatory notes are available in the User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics.
Longer term datasets contain https://data.gov.uk/dataset/0e26ee1b-26b7-406e-a3b1-f3481b324977/local-police-recorded-crime-data" class="govuk-link">police recorded crime for police force areas and local authorities
https://data.gov.uk/dataset/ea7a5bd4-4c26-4ea3-b1ff-c5c0dfe9fcfd/crime-in-england-and-wales-2010-11" class="govuk-link">Crimes detected in England & Wales 2010/11 reports on the levels and trends in detections and detection rates in England and Wales.
The last annual crime statistics https://data.gov.uk/dataset/df7e3554-2a62-497a-bbd6-2c3982dba5a5/crime-in-england-and-wales-2009-10" class="govuk-link">Crime in England and Wales 2009/10 was published in July 2010.
See the https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesannualsupplementarytables" class="govuk-link">Crime Survey supplementary tables on the nature of: burglary, vehicle-related theft, bicycle theft, household theft, personal and other theft and vandalism.
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.
The research project is a subproject of the research association “Strengthening of integration potentials within a modern society” (Scientific head: Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Heitmeyer, Bielefeld) which contains 17 subprojects and is supported by the ministry of education and research. In almost all the economically highly developed countries violent crime increased significantly in the second part of the last century - in contrast to the long term trend of decline of individual (non-governmental) violence since the beginning of modern times. The authors develop an explanatory approach for these facts which is inspired mainly by Norbert Elias´s civilization theory and Emil Durkheim´s theory on society. Detailed time series on the development of different forms of violent crime are presented and set in relation with certain aspects of economic and social structural changes in three countries and also refer to the changes in integration of modern societies. The analysis deals especially with effectivity and legitimacy of the governmental monopoly of violence, the public beneficial security and power system, forms of building social capital, economic and social inequality, precarity of employment, different aspects of increasing economization of society, changes in family structures and usage of mass media and modern communication technologies. Register of tables in HISTAT: A: Crime statistics A.01 Frequency of types of crimes in different countries (1953-2000) A.02 Suspects by crimes of 100.000 inhabitants of Germany, England and Sweden (1955-1998) A.03 Murders, manslaughter and intentional injuries by other persons by sex of 100.000 persons after the statistics of causes of death (1953-2000) A.04 Clearance rate by types of crimes in Germany, England and Sweden (1953-1997) A.05 Prisoners of 100.000 inhabitants of Germany, Great Britain and Sweden (1950-2000) B: Key indicators for economic development in Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and the USA B1: Data on the overall economic framework B1.01 Percent changes in the real GDP per capita in purchasing power parities (1956-1987) B1.02 Percent changes in GDP per capita in prices from 2000 (1955-1998) B1.03 GDP of Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom in purchasing power parities in percent og the US GDP (1950-1992) B1.04 Labor productivity index for different countries, base: USA 1996 = 100 (1950-1999) B1.05 GDP per hour of labor in different countries in EKS-$ from 1999 (1950-2003) B1.06 Foreign trade - exports and imports in percent of the GDP of different countries (1949-2003) B1.07 GDP, wages and Unit-Labor-Cost in different countries (1960-2003) B2: Unemployment B2.01 Standardized unemployment rate in different countries with regard to the entire working population (1960-2003) B2.02 Share of long-term unemployed of the total number of unemployed in different countries in percent (1992-2004) B2.03 Youth unemployment in different countries in percent (1970-2004) B2.04 Unemployment rate in percent by sex in different countries (1963-2000) B3: Employment B3.01 Employment rate in percent in different countries (1960-2000) B3.02 Share of fixed-term employees and persons in dependent employment in percent in different countries (1983-2004) B3.03 Share of part-time employees by sex compared to the entire working population in different countries (1973-2000) B3.04 Share of un-voluntarily part-time employees by sex in different countries (1983-2003) B3.05 Share of contract workers in different countries in percent of the entire working population (1975-2002) B3.06 Share of self-employed persons in different countries in percent of the entire working population (1970-2004) B3.07 Shift worker rate in different countries in percent (1992-2005) B3.08 Yearly working hours per employee in different countries (1950-2004) B3.09 Employment by sectors in different countries (1950-2003) B3.10 Share of employees in public civil services in percent of the population between 15 and 64 years in different countries (1960-1999) B3.11 Female population, female employees and female workers in percent of the population between 16 and 64 years in different countries (1960-2000) B3.12 Employees, self-employed persons in percent of the entire working population in different countries (1960-2000) B4: Taxes and duties B4.01 Taxes and social security contributions in percent of the GDP (1965-2002) B4.02 Social expenditure in percent of the GDP (1965-2002) B4.03 Social expenditure in percent of the GDP (1960-2000) B4.04 Public expenditure in percent of the GDP in different countries (1960-2003) B4.05 Education expenditure in percent of GDP (1950-2001) B5: Debt B5.01 Insolvencies in Germany and England (1960-2004) B5.02 Insolvencies with regard to total population in different countries (1950-2002) B5.03 Consumer credits in different countries (1960-2002) C: Income distribution in Germany, Great Britain and Sweden C.01 Income inequality in different countries Einkommensungleicheit in verschiedenen Ländern (1949-2000) C.02 Income inequality after different indices and calculations in different countries (1969-2000) C.03 Redistribution: Decline in Gini-Index through transfers and taxes in percent in different countries (1969-2000) C.04 Redistribution: Decline in Gini-Index through transfers and taxes in percent with a population structure as in the United Kingdom in 1969 in different countries (1969-2000) C.05 Redistribution efficiency: Decline in Gini-/ Atkinson-Index through transfers and the share of social expenditure of the GDP in different countries (1969-2000) C.06 Index for concentration of transfers in different countries (1981-2000) C.07 Distribution of wealth in West-Germany (1953-1998) C.08 Distribution of wealth in the United Kingdom (1950-2000) C.09 Distribution of wealth in Sweden (1951-1999) C.10 Relative income poverty in different countries (1969-2000) C.11 Reduction of poverty in different countries (1969-2000) C.12 Neocorporalism index in different countries (1960-1994) D: Perception of safety D.01 Satisfaction with democracy in different countries (1976-2004) D.02 Revenues and employees in the private security sector in different countries (1950-2001) D.03 Decommodification-Score in different countries (1971-2002) E: Demographics E.01 Birth rates: Birth per 1000 women between 15 and 49 years in different countries (1951-2001) E.02 Fertility rate in different countries (1950-2004) E.03 Marriages per 100.000 persons in different countries (1950-2003) E.04 Share of foreigners of the entire population in different countries (1951-2002) E.05 Internal migration in different countries (1952-2001)
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Presents the most recent crime statistics from the British Crime Survey (BCS) and police recorded crime in England and Wales. Responsibility for the compilation and publication of all crime statistics (British Crime Survey and Police Recorded Crime) for England and Wales will transfer from the Home Office to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 1 April 2012 as announced by the Home Secretary in July 2011. The ONS will publish for the first time on 19 April 2012.
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
United Kingdom UK: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data was reported at 1.202 Ratio in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 0.992 Ratio for 2015. United Kingdom UK: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data is updated yearly, averaging 1.399 Ratio from Dec 1995 (Median) to 2016, with 22 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1.865 Ratio in 2002 and a record low of 0.907 Ratio in 2014. United Kingdom UK: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.World Bank.WDI: Health Statistics. Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.; ; UN Office on Drugs and Crime's International Homicide Statistics database.; Weighted average;
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.
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).
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.
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.
We commissioned research to review questions in the BCS relating to intimate personal violen
In the 2024/25 reporting year, West Yorkshire reported the highest violent crime rate among police force areas of England and Wales, at 47.9 violent crimes per 1,000 people.