Crime in Lancashire
2007/08

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 series 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 2007/08 crime statistics by the Home Office was accompanied by a report Crime in England and Wales 2007/08 that provides a voluminous output of crime data and a wealth of information and interpretation of the national crime situation. A few selected key points are given below:

• There have been impressive headline falls over the past year in most crime categories. Based on BCS interviews in 2007/08 it is estimated that there were approximately 10.1 million crimes against adults living in private households in England and Wales. Police recorded crime in the same year amounted to 5.0 million. Compared with 2006/07 the BCS shows a 10% fall in crime over the financial year and police recorded crime shows a 9% decrease.
• Long term trends show that BCS crime in England and Wales rose steadily from 1981 through to the early 1990s, peaking in 1995. Since this point, and despite public perceptions, BCS crime has fallen by an estimated 48%, representing over 9 million fewer crimes. Of particular note since 1995 vehicle-related thefts have fallen by 66%, domestic burglary by 59%, violent crime by 48% and vandalism by 20%. BCS crime is now at its lowest-ever level since the first results in 1981.
• Over the course of the year 2007/08 the risk of becoming a victim of crime fell 24% to 22%. This level of risk is significantly lower than the peak of 40% recorded by the BSC in 1995, representing 5.5 million fewer victims. Overall, the risk of victimisation today is at its lowest level since the first BCS in 1981.
• Based on the 2007/08 BCS, violent crime, vandalism and vehicle-related thefts all fell over the course of the year (by 12%, 10% and 11% respectively), whilst domestic burglary and personal theft remained stable. Police recorded violence against the person was down by 8%. About a half of the violent incidents recorded by the BCS and of violence against the person offences recorded by the police involved no injury to the victims. Young men, aged 16-24, were most at risk of being a victim of such crime.
• Over the year there were falls in crimes recorded by the police for each of the main crime types with the exception of drug offences which rose by 18%. This rise was largely associated with the increased police use of powers to issue warnings for the possession of cannabis.
• The prevalence of illicit drug use among 16-59 year olds and 16-24 year olds is now at its lowest ever level since the first BCS results in 1995. This mainly reflects decreases in the use of cannabis, the most prevalent drug amongst both age groups.
"This Is Better."

• The police recorded 87,700 robberies across England and Wales in 2007/08, 16% fewer than in the previous year. Whilst this followed two years of increases, the late year's total was still 30% below the 2001/02 peak of 121,400.
• The number of police recorded offences involving firearms rose by 2% between 2006/07 and 2007/08; this followed a 13% fall in the previous year. Weapons were used in a quarter of BSC violent crimes: hitting implements were used in 7% of cases, knives in 6%, glasses/bottles in 4% and firearms in 1% of incidents.
• A new collection of additional crime statistics was started in 2007/08 in the use of a knife or a sharp instrument in a subset of violent offences (attempted murder, grievous bodily harm and robbery). For these offences, close to one in five involved knives or sharp instruments.
• APACS (the UK Payments Association) data show that in 2007, total losses from plastic card fraud on UK-issued cards were £535.2m, an increase of 25% from 2006. There were 2.7m fraudulent transactions on UK-issued cards recorded by APACS in the UK in 2007, an increase of 20% from 2006.
• Public perceptions and confidence in a number of aspects of the criminal justices system and in the local police generally increased between 2006/07 and 2007/08. More than half (53%) of people believe the local police were doing an excellent or good job, up from 51% in 2006/07. However, despite these general improvements in confidence and the falls in the number of crimes estimated by the BCS over recent years, comparatively high proportions of people still believe the crime rate to have risen (particularly readers of the tabloid press). It also appears that people have more positive perceptions of crime in their own area than nationally.
• Drugs and lack of discipline from parents were the two factors most commonly identified by people as the main causes of crime in Britain today (71% and 69% respectively). More than half of people (52%) also thought that alcohol was one of the major causes of crime though a much smaller proportion thought it was the main cause.
• Only about 42% of BCS crimes were reported to the police in 2007/08. The public's reporting of crime to the police varies considerably by type of offence. Thefts of vehicles are most likely to be reported (93%), followed by burglaries in which something was stolen (76%). Reporting rates are relatively low (about 1 in 3) for crimes such as common assault, theft from the person and vandalism.

Lancashire

Crime has continued to fall in Lancashire and numerically remains below the national average. According to police recorded crime records there were nearly 123,700 criminal offences in Lancashire in 2007/08, some 12,200 or 9% fewer than in the previous year (Table 1). The 2007/08 total represented 18.7% of the North West recorded number or 2.5% of all recorded crimes in England and Wales (less those recorded by the British Transport Police whose records are not geographically based in terms of police force areas). This sub-regional total was equivalent to a rate of 85 offences per 1,000 resident population (down from 94 per thousand in 2006/07), a position that was much lower than rates in both Greater Manchester (117 per 1,000 population) and Merseyside (94) but higher than in the other two shire areas of Cheshire (79) or Cumbria (71). The Lancashire rate was six percentage points below that for England and Wales (91 per thousand population) and considerably lower than that of the wider North West Region (97 per thousand population).

Violence against the person, other theft and criminal damage were the main offence groups in Lancashire, accounting for 69% of all recorded crimes (63% in England and Wales). The rates (per 1,000 population) within most crime group offences were similar too or lower than the pattern experienced in England and Wales. The main exception was criminal damage in which the Lancashire rate of 22 offences per thousand was three percentage points higher than the national average. The offences against vehicles rate in Lancashire was three percentage points below that nationally. Overall, total recorded crime within the Lancashire sub-region fell by about 9% between 2006/07 and 2007/08 comparable to that in England and Wales. There were reductions of about a fifth in offences against vehicles and fraud and forgery and continuing reductions in criminal damage and in "violent crime", most notably in violence against the person offences. Domestic burglary offences (not shown separately above) showed an annual reduction of 12% compared to a drop of 4% nationally, equating to 705 fewer victims. This was the third year in a row that overall crime in Lancashire has reduced and it is down by 19% compared to 2004/2005. The only significant increase over the course of the year 2007/08 was in the number of drug offences (+30%), mainly due to an increase in the number of possession of cannabis offences and increased enforcement action against drug dealers.

Lancashire Police 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: 2% of people in rural areas had been a victim of one or more violent crimes in 2007/08 compared with 4% of people in urban areas. In the case of household crime 12% of households in rural areas are at risk compared with 18% in urban 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: some 21% of households in the most deprived areas are a risk of being a victim of any household crime compared with 15% 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 so-called 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), rising to 81 offences per 1,000 population in Blackpool and Preston, are to be found in Lancashire's four largest urban districts followed by Hyndburn and Pendle. These same 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 19 is the third lowest in England and Wales after Tynedale and Teesdale.

Highest ranking Blackpool in the above table is especially characterised by the large number of recorded crimes of violence against the person, accounting for nearly a fifth of the sub-regional total (Table 3/Figure 1). The district's rate for this offence in 2007/08 at 35 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 also a relatively large offence group in Lancashire but recorded incidences are especially high in Burnley and Preston and elsewhere across the sub-region 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 and Preston on a par. 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.

Figure 1 Recorded Crime for Key Offences, 2007/08, Lancashire Districts

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.