The total for all recorded crime peaked in 2003/04 with 6 million crimes recorded, since which time it has fallen to 4,052,866 million in 2010/11 – a major reduction.  However, this is still vastly more (over six times more) than the 438,085 recorded in 1955, 55 years previously.   Adjusted for the 1998 and 2002 recording changes, the increase is still nearly six fold.

Latest figures from Eurostat say recorded crime in the UK in 2008 was 5,189,995, compared with 6,114,128 in Germany (which has a population one third bigger than the UK), but only 3,558,329 in France and 2,709,888 in Italy, which have very similar populations to the UK.  This is in spite of more people being locked up in prison in Britain (and consequently unable to carry on committing crimes).  In 2009, 153 people in every 100,000 were in prison in the UK, compared with 107 in Italy, 96 in France and 90 in Germany.  Spain had a higher total than Britain, at 164, but the EU average was 127.  (Source: Ministry of Justice).  In raw numbers, the UK's prison population in 2008 was 92,519, compared with 73,558 for Spain, 73,203 for Germany, 64,003 for France, and 58,127 for Italy.

Discrepancy with the British Crime Survey

Again, there is a discrepancy with the British Crime Survey, which shows little overall change since it started in 1981.  On the one hand, the Survey reveals more crimes – 9.7 million in 20010/11, compared with 4.2 million recorded by the police, and revealing that more than a fifth of us (21.5%) were victims of crime, once or more, in a single year.  On the other hand, a massive increase in police recorded crime (a near doubling since 1981) compares with a British Crime Survey verdict that there has been virtually no increase.

Which is the truth?  The BCS often picks up trivial crime, which is not regarded as important enough to report to the police.  In that sense, trends in police reported crime are more informative.  The BCS is so lacking in that it does not cover under 16 year olds, it does not cover crimes against businesses or public property (because it only asks ordinary people if they were victims of a crime) and it doesn’t include ‘victimless crimes’, such as drug offences.  It also doesn’t cover the period between 1958 and 1981, when there was a nearly five-fold increase in police recorded crime.

Nevertheless, one cannot ignore the fact that this very large survey does not bear out the sense in society that crime is on the increase, since it shows (along with police recorded crime figures) that crime levels have fallen in recent years.

Fear of crime

Perhaps the most recent impact of media obsession with crime and violence is that fear of crime has increased even when crime itself has not.  A huge majority – 75% - perceive there to have been an increase in crime, even in a period in which it has been falling.  Why should this be, if not for the constant portrayal of crime on TV and film and in the news media?  Only 36% perceive there to have been an increase in their locality, suggesting that the others who perceive there to have been an increase are basing this verdict, not on their own experience, but on the impression given by the media.  Anna Minton, in an important report on this, says that major blame must be attached to “a commercially driven media with a vested interest in promoting fear” (Why are fear and distrust spiraling in twenty-first century Britain? Joseph Rowntree Foundation ‘social evils series’, October 2008).

While there have been falls in crime levels in recent years, over a 50 year timescale there can be no doubt that crime levels have increased dramatically.  This increase would be even greater were it not for the huge growth in crime prevention measures, ranging from simply locking one’s doors when people used not to, to UPVC windows with complex locking devices, more advanced locks for cars, CCTV in shops and public places, security tags on products that trigger alarms on leaving shops.  Added to this, some crimes (particularly burglary) are far less profitable than they were, now that DVD players cost £19.99 instead of £200, and so on across a range of previously re-saleable products.