There were approximately 6.66 million crime offences recorded by the police in
in 2023/24, compared with 6.74 million in the previous reporting year, the highest figure recorded since 2002/03. In
.
Between 2003/04 and 2013/14 crime levels fell across England and Wales, from just over six million offences to a low of around four million. The trend was reversed after this point with significant yearly increases after 2013/14, leading to a peak of offences in the most recent year. Due to population growth, however, the
in England and Wales for 2022/23 was slightly lower than it was in the early 2000s.
What is driving the increase in crimes in the UK?
The sharp increase in crimes in recent years which came after significant reductions almost certainly has multiple causes, but one of the main factors is likely the cuts to public services imposed across the UK when the government was implementing austerity measures. 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 reduction in the number of
police officers after 2010. Another factor driving the overall crime increase is the sudden increase in certain types of crime, such as
sexual offences, which rose significantly after 2012/13. The fact that sexual crimes were often under-reported in the past combined with the new investigations into historic sex offences has driven some of this increase.
Homicides in the UK
While overall crime figures have almost reached levels not seen since the early 2000s, the
number of homicides in England and Wales in 2022/23 was 583, compared with over 1,000 in 2002/03. During the same time period, the
homicide rate fell from 20 per million people, to 9.7, with the homicide rates for Scotland and Northern Ireland also seeing significant declines.In London, there was a slight rise in
homicides, on the previous year, with 116 recorded in 2023/24, compared with 112 in the previous year. In 2023/24, no UK
region had a higher homicide rates than London, which was 13.1 homicides per million people in this reporting year.
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