325,000 violent crime probes abandoned by police in a single year
MORE than two million investigations into reported crimes were dropped by police last year, shocking figures show.
Official data shows 2,136,930 crimes were logged as ‘investigation complete – no suspect identified’ by forces in England and Wales during the year.
it means more than 5,800 investigations a day were abandoned, a labour Party analysis of home Office data revealed.
The two million figure, logged in the 12 months to September, marked a 25 per cent increase on the previous year, when it stood at 1.7million.
it was up by 41 per cent on 2015, when 1.5million crimes were logged as ‘investigation complete – no suspect identified’. last year’s total included more than 325,000 violent crimes in which investigations were abandoned by police, and more than 30,000 sexual offences.
Police dropped investigations into more than 34,000 robberies without identifying the perpetrator.
There were also more than 324,000 incidents of criminal damage or arson, and just under 1.3million thefts, in which no offender was tracked down.
in addition, inquiries into more than 191,000 public order offences were dropped by police.
Shadow home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who obtained the figures, said: ‘After 13 years, the Conservapolice tive legacy is more criminals being let off while more victims are let down. This is a scandalous drop in the number of criminals being arrested and charged – including on very serious crimes.’
She added: ‘The home Secretary is missing in action.
‘She (Suella Braverman) has no plan to turn this around or to tackle the major shortages in detectives or neighbourhood police.
‘labour has a fully-costed plan to put 13,000 extra neighbourhood
on our streets, fighting crime at its source and supporting communities.’
The Daily Mail has previously reported how the proportion of suspects charged with crimes has been plummeting since 2015.
Overall, the charge rate slipped from 15.5 per cent to just 5.5 cent last year.
There has been widespread concern over the falling charge rate in rape cases, which has collapsed from 8.5 per cent in 2015 to just 1.6 per cent last year.
in that time, the charge rate has fallen for every single crime type.
Among ‘violence against the person’ offences, the rate has collapsed from 22 per cent in 2015 to five per cent over the same period.
Meanwhile figures for robbery fell from 17.3 per cent to 8.3 per cent.
A spokesman for the home Office said: ‘Changes to police recording of crime mean they are logging more incidents where previously they would have failed to do so.
‘ Total crime excluding digital fraud, according to the definitive ONS- backed crime survey, is actually down by almost 50 per cent since 2010 and down eight per cent since the pre- pandemic year 2019/20.
‘labour and Yvette Cooper simply don’t have a clue.’
‘Home Secretary is missing in action’