Figures for home break-ins revealed

Survey finds many are not reported

LEVELS of home break-ins in Leicestershire may be almost three times higher than reported to the police.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales tracks crime rates by asking people if they have been a victim of crime in the past year, which can include crimes that weren’t reported to the police.

Those surveyed in the Leicestershire police force area said they had experienced domestic burglaries at a rate equivalent to 38.2 incidents for every 1,000 households in 2017/18 - 2.6 times higher than the 14.8 crimes for every 1,000 households actually reported to the police.

To put it another way, it means one in 26 homes in Leicestershire could have been burgled last year, compared to one in 67 homes that was reported to the police as being burgled.

Levels of violent crime in the police force area may also be higher than reported, with 22.6 incidences of violence reported per 1,000 people in the survey, compared to 20.5 crimes for every 1,000 people reported to the police.

The survey also suggested that people in Leicestershire are more likely to experience thefts than reports to the police indicate - with 15.8 crimes per 1,000 people in the survey, compared to 0.7 crimes per 1,000 people reported to the police.

Robberies were also happening at a potentially higher level than reported, with those surveyed saying they experienced the crime at a rate of 6 crimes per 1,000 people compared to the 0.8 robberies reported to the police per 1,000 people.

Certain crimes such as fraud and computer misuse are not published as separate categories in police recorded crime figures, but are included in the survey.

The survey also asked how many people had been victims of fraud in the past year, with the equivalent of one in 13 people in saying they had been a victim of the crime in 2017/18 - 78.4 incidents per 1,000 people.

As well as this, people in the area reported computer misuse crimes at a rate of 10 crimes per 1,000 people, the equivalent of one in 100 people being victims last year.

The number of people surveyed in each police force area can be quite small so the estimates of crime levels should be treated with caution as levels will depend on the experiences of those who were surveyed and how representative that is of everyone living in the area.