Crime hit a 20-year-high in Britain this year, yet more of these offences than ever are going unsolved. The stark reality is that, if you’re robbed, mugged or a victim of fraud, it’s less and less likely the police will catch those responsible.
This year, in England and Wales, just 5 per cent of reported crimes resulted in anyone being charged or summoned to court; it’s a big drop from the 15.5 per cent of suspects charged in 2015, when records began. The criminal justice system’s inability to catch and punish criminals has effectively decriminalised many crimes. Villains now operate in broad daylight with little fear of being caught. This lawlessness blights communities across Britain – and it spells trouble for a Prime Minister who has said he feels personally ‘committed’ to cracking down on crime.
Anyone living in a big city or town can see for themselves the effects of crime. Just the other day I opened my front door (in North London) to pop to the shops. Almost immediately I saw a hooded man in his mid-thirties put his hand in the pocket of a woman walking in front of him and steal something from her. In broad daylight.
Other times on my street I’ve seen mass brawls going uninterrupted for 30 minutes. Rarely, if ever though, have I seen a police officer. In my street, as in many parts of Britain, offenders seem to operate as if they know they won’t get caught. The official data backs up this brazen view: recorded crime (figures from police databases) in the most recent yearly figures stands at 6.5 million offences.
The biggest rise in crime has been sexual offences, which now stand at a record high of 196,889 – more than a fifth higher than before Covid. Yet only 3 per cent of sexual offences result in a suspect being charged. The next biggest increase was in thefts; only 4 per cent of those cases result in a charge. The trend is much the same across all crime: as reports go up, the charging rate seems to go down.
These crimes have increased across the country. But some forces have witnessed bigger jumps than others: Gloucestershire has seen crime climb 33 per cent in a year (the fastest rise in the country) while Northamptonshire constabulary has seen a slight fall. Violent crime has fallen fastest in Durham and shot up in Gloucestershire too. Meanwhile theft is up 40 per cent in Cleveland and down over 8 per cent in Hertfordshire.
Most crime did fall during the pandemic – criminals were locked down too, of course. But the same wasn’t true for fraud and computer misuse offences i.e hacking. These increased some 17 per cent in the year ending March 2020 having already jumped 7 per cent the year before. But at the same time, more and more of these cases are going unsolved too: with the charging rate falling nearly 6 per cent last year.
Officers now deal with many crimes now that weren’t conceivable in the days of Dixon of Dock Green
Why are so many crimes going unsolved? Nearly 40 per cent of crimes don’t end up in court because of what the Home Office calls 'evidential difficulties’. This seems to have worsened since the pandemic: in March 2020, this only accounted for 35 per cent of unsolved cases; when records began it was just 17 per cent. Meanwhile, police funding is higher – in real terms – than when the Conservatives came to office.
What about whodunit? More Home Office data shows over a third of cases (36 per cent) are closed without a suspect even being identified. Remarkably this is a slight improvement since before the pandemic, though officials attribute this to a fall in thefts during Covid. This welcome decline appears to have persisted since the end of lockdown – at least for now. Typically, some 72 per cent of theft cases are closed without a suspect being identified. The police, it seems, have just never been good at solving these kinds of cases.
Some blame the fall in the number of people being brought to justice on coppers’ ‘caseloads’, which have become more complex. Officers now deal with many crimes now that weren’t conceivable in the days of Dixon of Dock Green. Computer misuse offences, for instance, grew nearly a fifth in 2020. Elsewhere, half of blackmail crimes are now committed over the internet, and 22 per cent of stalking and harassment offences are committed online too. This, the Home Office says, is responsible for an increase in cases that have yet to reach a conclusion (12 per cent, up from 8).
Perhaps this is also why it’s taking the police longer to deal with cases. It takes bobbies in England and Wales two weeks for cases to be solved or closed on average: more than double the time it took in 2018. Drug offences now take 23 days on average to look at – three days longer than pre-pandemic. Robberies take ten days longer to have an ‘outcome assigned’ than they did in 2020/21; and thefts are taking a day more too.
It's thirty years since Tony Blair first used the phrase ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’. In a magazine article he wrote: ‘The Tories have given up on crime’. Crime was soaring then too, and most householders or car owners had fallen victims. Just four years later, he led the Labour party to a landslide victory, having mentioned the word ‘crime’ 34 times in his manifesto (the NHS by contrast only received 19 mentions). Today, as more and more cases go unsolved, Labour have a five point poll lead over the Tories on handling crime – their first lead since Blair left office.
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