Violent crimes reported in England and Wales rise 20%

The number of violent offences reported to police in England and Wales was up 20 per cent in the year to September compared to the previous 12 months — in a sign that two decades of steady reductions in violent crime may be coming to an end.

The figures, which were released by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday, showed a 10 per cent increase in the underlying level of homicides. The number of reported assaults with knives rose 21 per cent, while reports of firearms offences was up 20 per cent.

Diane Abbott, Labour’s shadow Home Secretary, said the figures were “truly shocking” and should put an end to what she called “government complacency” on crime. She blamed the increase on cuts in government funding for the police.

“The Tories . . . have now cut over 21,000 police officers since 2010, leaving forces across the country under-staffed and over-stretched,” she said.

However, the picture was complicated by the findings of the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which was released alongside the police figures. The measure, which is based on a survey of the public and is less affected by shifts in police reporting practices, showed that crime levels were falling.

Mark Bangs, a statistician for the Office for National Statistics, said the survey showed that crime levels declined compared with 2015-16 but that the picture varied across different types of offences.

“While overall levels of violent crime were not increasing, there is evidence of rises having occurred in some of the low incidence but more harmful categories such as knife and gun crime,” Mr Bangs said.

Tom Gash, an independent adviser on crime and policing, said the figures confirmed there was a long-term trend towards lower crime. But he added: “There could be an increase in serious violence — homicides and sexual offences and knife crime.”

Crime figures are among the most controversial statistics produced by government, because of the issue’s political sensitivity. Police-recorded figures can show sudden increases in particular measures because of changes in the readiness of police forces to record certain behaviours as crimes.

Meanwhile, crime surveys are poor at picking up the prevalence of the most serious offences, such as stabbings and homicides, because they are so rare.

This year’s crime survey shows that violent crime was down 11 per cent to 1.18m, the number of robberies has remained static, while thefts were down 4 per cent. Overall crime is down 69 per cent from its peak in 1995-96.

However, the police figures suggest there has been a sustained rise in murders and manslaughter, an offence that is generally consistently recorded. Excluding the terror attacks and the effect of the Hillsborough verdict, there were 650 homicides in England and Wales in 2016-17, up 10 per cent on the previous 12 months.

Police reports of sexual offences, which many experts believe partially reflect greater police willingness to record offences, were up 23 per cent year-on-year.

Mr Gash said that, whatever the true picture of crime trends, it was clear that the police’s workload was rising at a time when their funding was growing tighter.

“They have to deal with a lot of serious crimes and they are cases that they have to investigate and they’re very hard crimes to investigate,” he said.