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Introduction

Lancashire crime statistics are derived from an annual Home Office publication "Crime in England and Wales" that combines the reporting of police recorded crime and the British Crime Survey (BCS) results. Definitions and perceptions of crime change all the time as does people's willingness to tell the police about it. The above two sources provide a complementary series that together are held to provide a better picture of crime than could be obtained from either source alone.

• The police recorded crime statistics provide a good measure of trends in well-reported crimes. They are an important indicator of police workload and can be used for local crime pattern analysis. Recorded crime provides the only measure of homicide and also the only reliable measure of relatively uncommon crimes such as robbery. Unlike the BCS, recorded crime also includes crimes committed against businesses and against those aged under16. Police recorded crime relates to the location of the incident and can be provided for small geographic areas. Unless otherwise stated, this is the main source of the Lancashire statistics used in this article.
• British Crime Survey (BCS) results are based on interviews conducted with adults living in private households and relates to where the respondent lives. For the crime types it covers, the BCS can provide a better reflection of the true extent of household and personal crime because it includes crimes that are not reported to the police and thus not recorded by them. The BCS does not aim to provide a total count of crime but does give a better indicator of trends in crime over time because it has a consistent methodology and is unaffected by changes in levels of reporting to the police, recording practices or police activity. It is estimated that about 40% of all BCS crime is reported to the police although this varies for individual offence types.

The National Picture

The release of the 2008/09 crime statistics by the Home Office was accompanied by a report Crime in England and Wales 2008/09 that provides a wealth of crime data with information on and interpretation of the national crime situation. A few selected key points are given below:

• Overall, crime as measured by the BCS shows no change compared with the 2007/08 BCS with no change in most crime types. Crimes recorded by the police show a 5% decrease compared with 2007/08, with decreases in most crime types.
• Long-term trends show that BCS crime rose steadily from 1981 through to the early 1990s, peaking in 1995. Crime then fell, making 1995 a significant turning point. The fall was substantial until 2004/05. Since then, BCS crime has shown little overall change with the exception of a statistically significant reduction of 10 per cent in 2007/08 (the lowest ever level since the first results in 1981). The apparent increase of 5% in BCS crime this year is not statistically significant. Trends in BCS violence, vehicle-related theft and burglary broadly reflect the trend in all BCS crime.
• The majority of crimes are property related.
• Vandalism accounts for 26% of all BCS crime (two-thirds of which is vehicle vandalism); criminal damage accounts for one in five (20%) of crimes recorded by the police.
• Vehicle-related theft accounts for 14% of all BCS crime. Offences against vehicles account for 13% of recorded crime. The BCS shows that vehicle-related thefts and vandalism are stable compared with 10% falls in police recorded crime for both offences against vehicles and criminal damage.
• Burglary accounts for 7% of all BCS crime and 12% of recorded crime. There was no change in the level of domestic burglary as measured by the BCS. Overall, police recorded burglary also showed little change with a 1% increase in domestic burglaries and a 2% fall in non-domestic burglaries.
• Violent crime represents around a fifth (20%) of BCS crime. Violence against the person also accounts for around a fifth (19%) of police recorded crime.

• Around half of violent crime involved no injury (47% of BCS violence and 53% of police recorded violence against the person). The BCS shows that since 1995 there have been large falls in domestic and acquaintance violence while stranger violence has fluctuated from year to year. The number of muggings has remained stable. Based on the 2008/09 BCS, violent crime remained stable compared with the previous year (the apparent 4% fall was not statistically significant). For police recorded crime, total violence against the person decreased by 6%.
• Homicides in 2008/9 were at a 20 year low.
• Weapons were used in about one in five (21%) of BCS violent crimes (this figure has been stable over the past decade); knives were used in 7%, glasses or bottles in 5%, hitting implements in 4% and firearms in 1% of incidents. Between 2007/08 and 2008/09 BCS interviews, the use of knives and glasses or bottles has remained stable while the use of hitting implements has decreased.
  
• The UK Cards Association records information on plastic card fraud in the UK. There were 2.8 million fraudulent transactions on UK-issued cards recorded in the UK in 2008, an increase of four per cent from 2007 (2.7 million). The BCS shows that the risk of being a victim of plastic card fraud increased from 4.7% to 6.4% among card users interviewed in 2007/08 and 2008/09.
• The risk of becoming a victim of crime has risen very slightly from 22% to 23% in the last year, having fallen from 40% in 1995. The risk of victimisation varies by personal and household characteristics and by crime type.
• Levels of repeat victimisation (being a victim of the same crime type more than once) vary by offence type. Victims of domestic violence and vandalism are most likely to experience repeat victimisation.
• Confidence in the criminal justice system (CJS) has increased slightly. Around half of adults (49%) agreed that the police and local councils were dealing with anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in the local area, increasing from 45% in 2007/08. There are high levels of confidence in the police treating people fairly (65%) and with respect (84%), but less confidence that they are effective in dealing with crime and related issues, for example, only 46% of people thought their local police could be relied on to deal with minor crimes. Six out of ten adults thought the CJS as a whole is fair (an increase from 56% to 59% since 2007/08).

• Overall, people tend to have less negative perceptions about crime in their local area than nationally. The proportion of people that perceive an increase in crime nationally (75%) is higher than those that perceive an increase in crime locally (36%), and this is evident across all crime types.
• The BCS asks people if they think that different types of anti-social behaviour are a problem in their local area. Seven individual strands of anti-social behaviour (ASB) are combined to form a measure of high level of perceived ASB. The 2008/09 BCS shows that this has remained stable at 17% compared with the 2007/08 BCS.

Lancashire

Crime has continued to fall in Lancashire and is below the national and regional averages. According to police recorded crime records there were nearly 117,575 criminal offences in Lancashire in 2008/09, some 6,000 or 5% fewer than in the previous year (Table 1). This was the fourth year in a row that overall crime in Lancashire has reduced and it is down by 23% compared to 2004/2005.

The 2008/09 total represented 18.8% of the North West recorded number or 2.5% of all recorded crimes in England and Wales. The Lancashire rate was equivalent to a rate of 81 offences per 1,000 resident population (down from 94 per thousand in 2006/07), a position that was lower than rates in both Greater Manchester (110 per 1,000 population) and Merseyside (87) but higher than in the other two shire areas of Cheshire (75) and Cumbria (62).

Figure 1 Crime Types by Volume

Source Home Office: Crime in England and Wales

Criminal damage, violence against the person and other theft offences were the main offence groups in Lancashire, accounting for 66% of all recorded crimes (62% in England and Wales).

The rates (per 1,000 population) within most crime group offences were similar to or lower than the pattern experienced in England and Wales. The main exception was criminal damage where the Lancashire rate of 20 offences per 1,000 population was three percentage points higher than the national average but lower than the North West average of 21. The increase in domestic burglary is small at the moment and numbers were at an all time low in 2007/8. The increase in drug offences can be accounted for by increased enforcement activity. The offences against vehicles rate in Lancashire was two percentage points below that nationally.

Lancashire Constabulary Headquarters, Hutton

Recorded crime data is also published for district authorities or "Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships". The availability of such data as well as that from the BCS clearly indicates that crime is not evenly distributed across England and Wales and that geographic patterns and concentrations of offences also vary across crime types. For example, the 29 local authorities with rates of robbery more than twice the average for England and Wales represent 15% of the population but account for 53% of all robbery offences.

Geographic patterns and concentrations of offences vary across crime types. The BCS has found that the risk of being a victim of burglary, vehicle theft or violent crime was lower in rural areas than in urban areas: 3% of households in urban areas had been victims of burglary compared with 1% in rural areas. 7% had been victims of vehicle-related theft compared with 4% in rural areas. 8% had experienced vandalism compared with 5% in rural areas. Further, the BCS has indicated that people living in more deprived areas are more likely to be a victim of crime than those living in less deprived areas: In the most deprived areas the risk of households being victims of vandalism, vehicle related theft and burglary are 10%, 9% and 4% respectively as compared with 7%, 7% and 2% in the least deprived areas.

Similar considerations probably also apply in Lancashire where a very diverse pattern of recorded crime distribution is apparent between districts. This may be illustrated by means of the recorded crime BCS comparator that endeavours to reconcile sub-sets of offences covered by both recorded police crime and the BCS (Table 2). The highest rates (all above the national average), are to found in the four largest urban districts , with Blackpool at 78 offences per 1,000 population heading the table, followed by Burnley, 76 offences per 1,000 population and Preston with 68 offences per 1,000 population. The top six districts are also within the top "most deprived" districts in England.

Conversely, the lowest crime rates are to be found in Fylde and Ribble Valley, two relatively prosperous districts each ranked amongst the "least deprived" in England. The offence rate per thousand population in Ribble Valley at just 18 is the fifth lowest in England and Wales after the Isles of Scilly, Broadland, Tynedale and Teesdale.

Highest ranking Blackpool in the table below is especially characterised by the large number of recorded crimes of violence against the person, accounting for nearly a fifth of the county total (Table 3/Figure 1). The district's rate for this offence in 2008/09 at 32 per thousand population is nearly twice the England and Wales average and is in contrast to most other offences in the district which are close to or even below the national average. Burnley and Preston also exhibit relatively high rates of violence against the person.

Theft from a motor vehicle is especially high in Burnley; elsewhere across the county rates are close to or below the national rate. Burnley is the only district in which burglary offences are above the England and Wales average with Blackpool on a par. Preston's rate has fallen below the England and Wales average in 2008/9.

Large swathes of Lancashire outside the larger urban districts have criminal offence rates across all key categories that are below, and often significantly below the national average. This bears out the BCS findings that rural areas have lower crime rates than urban areas.

Figure 2 Recorded Crime for Key Offences, 2008/09

Source Home Office: Crime in England and Wales

Crime rates can, of course, also vary very considerably within individual districts themselves, being closely associated with such factors as levels of local deprivation, the nature of the housing stock and the number of transient visitors. For further information on such local community statistics, including crime, for Lancashire wards, go to Lancashire Made Public.

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