Surge in ‘high harm’ violence in Wales
POLICE-RECORDED crime has hit the highest level in more than a decade with reports of violence, sexual offences, knife crime and robberies in Wales surging.
In the 12 months to March, the nation’s four forces logged 231,000 crimes – a rise of 13% compared with the previous year (not including reports of fraud).
Across the UK, it also emerged the proportion of recorded crimes that result in a charge or summons has fallen below one in 10, while officer numbers are the lowest in at least 22 years.
Detection levels are lowest for rape offences, in which only 3% of reports lead to someone being charged or summonsed. Three-quarters of theft cases were also closed with no suspect identified.
Reports of knife crime in Wales have risen by 52% in the last seven years and by 25% in the last year alone. In total, there were 1,129 offences involving a knife in Wales last year – 4% of all the offences recorded. In London, the proportion of offences that involve a knife is much higher, at 11%.
There were also significant rises in offences classed as “violence against the person” which rose 20%. Within that category, the largest rise was in stalking and harassment, which rose 34% in Wales. Violence with injury
was up 7% and violence without injury up 26%.
The number of reports of sexual offences rose by 39% with significant rises in all four Welsh forces except for Dyfed-Powys Police. In North Wales, reports rose 70%, in Gwent by 52% and in South Wales by 25%.
Reports of robberies also rose significantly, up by 36% across Wales with the biggest rises in North Wales, up 68%, Gwent, up 48%, and South Wales, up 30%. There was no rise in Dyfed Powys Police force area.
Reports of theft rose less significantly, up 4% across Wales. Drugs offences fell but incidents involving weapons grew by 18%, driven largely by North and South Wales Police where reports rose 30% and 26% respectively.
The number of public order offences reported to police also rose significantly in Wales, up 38% with rises in all four Welsh forces.
In Wales, there were 45 offences recorded as homicides, which includes murder and manslaughter. The UK’s total figure was 736, up 12% on a year earlier.
Publishing the data, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said: “Over recent decades, we’ve seen a fall in overall levels of crime, a trend that now looks to be stabilising.”
In findings that will prompt renewed focus of police and government efforts to tackle serious violence and other crime types, ONS and Home Office data also showed:
■ Both police and the separate Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) registered increases in vehicle-related theft and burglary;
■ the number of police officers in England and Wales was 122,404 at the end of March, the lowest number since comparable records started in 1996;
■ nearly half (48%) of investigations into recorded crimes were closed without a suspect being identified – a similar level to last year; and
■ the proportion of offences resulting in a charge or summons fell by two percentage points to 9%, while in a fifth of cases the victim did not support further action.
The ONS data bulletin draws on two main sources – offences recorded by police and the large-scale CSEW, which charts people’s experience of crime. The survey gave an estimated total of 10.6 million incidents of crime over the same period, a 4% year-on-year fall.
Estimates of violent offending as measured by the CSEW were unchanged at around 1.3 million incidents.
Concern over serious violence intensified this year after a spate of fatal stabbings and shootings, with London in particular badly hit by bloodshed.
In the year to March, there was a rise of almost a fifth (19%), to nearly 1.4 million, in the number of recorded “violence against the person” crimes – a broad category including murder, assault, harassment and stalking.
Alex Mayes, policy and public affairs adviser for charity Victim Support, said: “It’s truly shocking to see these rises in homicides and violent crime such as knife crime..”
Caroline Youell, of the ONS, said most people do not experience crime. She said: “Today’s figures show a fairly stable picture in England and Wales for most crime types. It is too early to say if this is a change to the long-term declining trend.”
Che Donald, vice-chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “These new figures are proof, as if we even needed it, that policing in the UK is on the critical list.”
Police minister Nick Hurd said: “The independent Office for National Statistics is clear that the likelihood of being a victim remains low, however, every violent crime is a significant concern and the Government is taking decisive action to tackle it.”