Crime is at an all time low - really?

The latest national crime figures have recently been released, for the 12 months up to September 2014, showing crime is at an all time low.
But what do they actually mean? In truth, very little.
The “Crime survey of England and Wales” (CSEW) showed a 11% decrease in crime compared to the previous 12 months.
However only 39 of the 1,448 offences, notifiable by the police to the Home Office, are used in establishing this figure. Of these 39 offences the estimate is based upon domestic crime only, so burglary, robbery and theft involving businesses are not included in the overall total.
The figures for vehicle crime does not include commercial vehicles and criminal damage excludes crimes relating to businesses premises and public buildings.
Of the main crime categories used by the Home Office, victim based crimes not covered include shoplifting, homicides and sexual crimes. No crimes against the state appear in the statistics, these included drug offences, possession of weapons, public order and other miscellaneous crimes.
Incidents of Fraud are not included, so cheque/plastic card offences, cyber enabled/dependant crime do not appear in the headline figures.
Lastly, crimes committed against those under 16 also do not appear in figures quoted.

The survey was first used in 1982, the core survey has changed little in this time but additional questionnaires have been added that address some of the shortcoming described above. However, the results of these do not form a part of the headline figures.

There is little doubt that a lot of the crime which forms the CSEW has decreased in volume but the headline figures do not reflect the changes in the way crime is conducted and the speed “new” crimes have become commonplace.

We are now far more likely to suffer lose from cyber crime than burglary or theft.

Don’t be fooled by these figures, they have little to do with the number of offences being committed nor the workload being placed on our police forces in preventing crime taking place.

At the end of the day no one really knows if crime is decreasing but it is certainly changing.