Crime has fallen in England and Wales, according to official data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW).
According to the ONS, the police recorded 3.7 million offences in the year ending March 2013, a drop of 7 per cent on the year before and the lowest level since 2002/03, when the last major change in police recording practice was introduced.
Meanwhile, separate data from the CSEW, which is based on people’s experience of crime and includes offences that may not have been reported, showed that the number of crimes had fallen by 9 per cent since a year ago.
This latest estimate is the lowest since the survey began in 1981 and is now less than half its peak level in 1995. However, the survey also estimated that there were an additional 0.8 million crimes against children aged between 10 and 15.
Victim-based crime was by far the most prevalent, the ONS said, accounting for 3.1 million offences, with a 1 per cent rise in sexual offences and a 9 per cent rise in theft from the person, which includes offences such as snatching mobile phones in the street and pick-pocketing.
Meanwhile, fraud increased by a whopping 27 per cent, with scams such as fake online auctions and people on dating sites tricking the lovelorn into parting with cash contributing to the surge.
At the same time, the Home Office revealed that the number of police officers had fallen by 4,500 to 130,000 since the same time last year, prompting the police inspectorate to warn that local patrolling is in danger of being “eroded”, which could have an impact on crime prevention programmes and response times to 999 calls.