Catalina Espinosa
Research expert covering society, economy, and politics for Europe and the EU
Crime in the UK - Statistics & Facts
Between the early 2000s and mid-2010s, crime rates across the United Kingdom fell considerably, before beginning to rise again from around 2015 onwards. This was particularly evident in England and Wales, which saw the number of police recorded crimes rise from around four million in 2013/14 to a peak of 6.74 million by 2022/23. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, crime also fell until the mid 2010s, but did have not increased at a comparable rate to England and Wales in the intervening years.
What crimes are rising in the UK?
While some types of crime have remained at historically low levels, certain types of crime have increased substantially. Violence against the person offences, which includes harassment, assaults, and homicides reached a peak of 2.1 million offences in 2022/23, compared with just over 600,000 ten years earlier. Although overall theft offences have actually declined, certain types of theft, such as shoplifting have spiked since the COVID-19 pandemic. Another factor driving increase is the sudden increase in sexual offences, which rose significantly after 2012/13. The fact that sexual crimes were often under-reported in the past combined with new investigations into historic sex offences is partly responsible for this rise.Justice system struggles
The sharp increase in crimes in recent years which came after significant reductions almost certainly has multiple causes, but one likely factor is the cuts to public services imposed across the UK from 2010 onwards. Crime figures began to increase just as funding for the police hit a low of 16.35 billion British pounds in 2013/14, with funding not increasing by any significant amount until 2017/18. One of the main consequences of these spending cuts was a 20,000 reduction in the number of police officers between 2010 and 2017. Further down the justice system, the ability of courts to handle higher caseloads was hampered first by justice system cuts, and then by the closure of courts during the pandemic, resulting in a large backlog of cases. Finally, evidence suggests that prisons in the UK are increasingly violent places, and have been operating far too close to their capacity for several years.
