Welsh force with the lowest crime rate in the UK

A WELSH police force has again recorded the smallest crime rate anywhere in Wales and England – although recorded incidents have risen across the country, new figures show.

There was one crime recorded somewhere in Wales every three minutes over the 12 months to September last year, according to the data.

Across Wales as a whole, there was a 21% rise in crimes against persons and a 19% rise in reports of sex crimes compared to the previous 12 months.

But the Office for National Statistics said those rises can be explained in part by more victims reporting sexual offences and because police now record violence against person offences differently.

There was a 6% rise in all crimes for Wales as a whole, with the largest relative increase recorded by Dyfed-Powys Police.

But the force, which covers the counties of Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire and Powys, still had the lowest rate of recorded crime of any of police force in Wales and England – with 42.5 crimes recorded per 1,000 people.

The police recorded crime figures showed there were a total of 195,380 crimes, excluding fraud, committed in Wales in the 12 months to September last year. That represents a year-on-year rise of more than 11,000 crimes.

But in Wales there was a slight fall in the number of theft offences – including burglary and shoplifting – and a big drop in the number of drug crimes.

According to a breakdown of the figures, there were 57.6 crimes recorded per 1,000 people in the North Wales area, 66.8 in Gwent and 72.4 in South Wales – which includes Wales’ two biggest cities, Cardiff and Swansea.

The highest recorded crime rate for Wales and England as a whole was in West Yorkshire, with 96.6 crimes per 1,000 people, while England’s lowest rates were in neighbouring North Yorkshire (46) and Devon and Cornwall (46.5).

The figures were released in parallel with the results of the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which showed there were an estimated 11.8m crimes in the year to September 2016 across the two countries.