Latest news with #CrimeSurveyforEnglandand
South Wales Guardian
6 days ago
- South Wales Guardian
About one in 10 people victims of domestic abuse, stalking or sexual assault
The figure is closer to one in eight for women, while for men it is slightly lower at about one in 12. It is the first time an estimate has been made of the combined prevalence of domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking. The figures have been published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) using data collected as part of the Crime Survey for England and Wales. Women's Aid head of research and evaluation Sarah Davidge said this is a 'poignant year' for data relating to violence against women and girls and publishing the figures is a step towards a better overview of such crimes. The survey measures experiences of crime, with domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking referred to as 'crime types' because in some cases a criminal offence may not have occurred. Some 10.6% of all people aged 16 and over are likely to have experienced one or more of these crime types in the year to March 2025, with 12.8% for women and 8.4% for men. The figures equate to an estimated 5.1 million people aged 16 and over in England and Wales, of which 3.2 million are women and nearly 2.0 million are men, the ONS said. A slightly higher estimate of 5.4 million people or 11.3% has been made for the previous 12 months – the year to March 2024 – which equates to 3.4 million women (14.0%) and 2.0 million men (8.6%). The ONS said that because these estimates are still in development and are subject to change, caution should be taken when making comparisons between the two years and is it not possible to say whether the difference is statistically significant. The new estimate of the prevalence of domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking will be used as the main way for the Government to track its efforts on tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG). Ministers have promised to halve levels in a decade – to 2034 – and will set out more details on how the data will be used in its VAWG strategy which will be published in September. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: 'As part of our mission to tackle the national emergency of violence against women and girls, we have made sure that for the first time the figures are being recorded in a combined way. 'We have already started to put domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms and invested in major new perpetrator programmes.' Ms Davidge said the move 'reflects the Government's commitment to ending VAWG', but added such prevalence measures do not consider the number of times each person was victimised. 'We know that women encounter higher rates of repeat victimisation, are more likely to be subject to coercive and controlling behaviour and be seriously harmed or killed than male victims,' she said. 'Therefore, prevalence measures can underestimate the gender asymmetry of these crimes.' End Violence Against Women and Girls Coalition's Rebecca Hitchen warned that the data fails to capture the full spectrum of incidents such as online and honour-based abuse, and that questions must be asked how much the new measure will impact funding decisions. Refuge chief executive Gemma Sherrington said the Government must act urgently to meet its target, including for ring-fenced multi-year funding for specialist organisations to support survivors. 'We welcome improvements to data collection, but these figures are likely to represent the tip of the iceberg as VAWG remains severely under-reported,' the charity boss said. Elsewhere, data published on Thursday shows the number of shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales has climbed to another record high. Some 530,643 offences were logged in 2024-25, up 20% from 444,022 in 2023-24 and the highest total since current police recording practices began in 2002-03. Retail bosses have warned that shop theft is spiralling out of control and that business owners need to see immediate results as ministers have pledged thousands more officers for neighbourhood policing by next spring. The Home Secretary said: 'This summer our new neighbourhood policing guarantee means over 500 town centres are getting extra neighbourhood patrols and action on town centre crime.' Association of Convenience Stores chief executive James Lowman said the recorded figures show more crimes are being reported, but this is still 'far too low'. He added: 'Retailers tell us that they won't report crime if they have no faith in it being investigated. There are pockets of good practice around the country…but these examples are still too rare.' Theft from the person offences also remain at record levels, with 151,220 recorded by forces in the year to March, up 15% from 131,584 in the previous 12 months. However, the number of knife crime offences recorded by forces slightly dropped. The figure stood at 53,047 in 2024-25, down 1% from 53,685 in 2023,24 and 4% below the pre-pandemic level of 55,170 in 2019,20. Commenting on published figures on Thursday, Billy Gazard of the ONS, said: 'Police recorded crime paints a mixed picture. While homicide, and offences involving knives and guns, declined nationally, there were variations across police forces. 'Meanwhile, the number of recorded shoplifting offences continues to rise.' In total, police forces recorded 6.6 million crimes in England and Wales in 2024-25, down slightly by 1% from 6.7 million in 2023-24. This is up from 6.1 million in the pre-pandemic year of 2019-20, and from 4.2 million a decade earlier in 2014-15. This is likely to reflect 'changes in police activity and recording practices' as well as genuine changes in trends in crimes reported to and recorded by forces, meaning the figures do 'not tend to be a good indicator of general trends in crime', the ONS said. Separate figures published by the Home Office show of all police-recorded offences in 2024-25, 7.3% led to a charge or summons, up from 6.4% in the previous year. For knife-related crimes, 11.5% resulted in a charge or summons in the year to March, which is higher than similar offences without a knife at 6.7%.
Rhyl Journal
22-05-2025
- Rhyl Journal
Fraud victims let down by outdated 1960s policing structure, report finds
Think tank the Police Foundation has called for a major overhaul of how law enforcement deals with fraud, which makes up around 40% of total crime in Britain. In the year to December 2024, there were an estimated 4.1 million incidents of fraud, up a third on the previous year, according to the annual Crime Survey for England and Wales. The Police Foundation report, published on Thursday, made a series of recommendations including setting up a UK Crime Prevention Agency and a national policing body to deal with fraud. The issue should be dealt with at a UK level alongside terrorism and serious and organised crime including economic and cyber offences, it said. It also called upon regional mayors and police and crime commissioners to take a so-called public health approach to fraud, raising awareness about how to avoid being scammed. The report concluded: 'Fraud has become the single biggest form of crime affecting people in the UK and yet our policing institutions have not caught up with the scale of that change. 'We have a 1960s local policing structure trying to fight a 21st century cyber-enabled cross-border crime. 'As a result the police are achieving limited success and victims are receiving too little by way of service.' While the report found that a lot of prevention work needs to be done outside policing, it also called for reform of how the police deal with fraud by 2030. Michael Skidmore, head of serious crime research at the Police Foundation, said: 'Fraud is a high-volume, harmful crime, often perpetrated online by sophisticated networks that operate across police force and international borders. 'In comparison, our policing response is under-resourced, under-skilled and locked into a reactive, geographically bounded policing model developed to tackle the local crime problems of the 1960s. 'We are calling for a wholesale shift to a prevention-focused response. 'We need a new national lead body with a ringfenced budget and local and regional tasking powers, greater private sector collaboration and an uplift in skills. 'The current model is simply unsustainable, given the scale, harm and sophistication of the fraud challenge we face today.' The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that around 14% of fraud is reported to police or the centralised Action Fraud service. A total of 1,214,639 fraud reports were made to police in the year to March 2024, of which 3,641 ended with someone being charged with a crime. Research by report sponsor Virgin Media O2 using freedom of information requests suggested that only 6% of reports to Action Fraud were passed to police forces for investigation in 2023/24. Three of the forces in England and Wales had no officers dedicated to investigating fraud, the telecoms giant found. The report also said that in March 2021 there were 866 economic crime officers in English and Welsh police forces, equal to 0.64% of the total workforce when fraud is 40% of crime. Murray Mackenzie, director of fraud prevention at Virgin Media O2, said the company had blocked fraudulent transactions worth more than £250 million in one year. He added: 'With overall fraud prosecutions falling despite a 33% jump in cases last year, the UK is failing to effectively tackle fraud, and criminals are stealing with no real prospect of ever facing justice.' The report said that of 252 police officers and staff surveyed by YouGov between March 31 and April 4, 88% disagreed that police have enough resources to tackle fraud. When the author asked one unnamed senior officer what the National Fraud Squad is, a scheme set up by the previous government, they laughed, the report said. A series of recommendations in the report also includes a call for the private sector to be pushed to share data that could prevent fraud with the police. Deputy Commissioner Nik Adams, national co-ordinator for economic and cyber crime for the City of London Police, said: 'The response to fraud has been improving. 'It is not about a badly designed system; it is about sustainably resourcing and strengthening the response to keep pace with this constantly evolving threat. 'To accelerate further fraud reductions, the wider system, especially the tech sector, need to make online platforms much more hostile to criminals.' He said that City of London Police is 'leading a national economic crime strategy to increase fraud investigators and the use of financial investigation to seize assets, including crypto currency, from criminals using specialist investigation and policing powers.' Its officers are also working with watchdog His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services to make sure local forces understand what they need to do to tackle fraud, he added.
Leader Live
22-05-2025
- Leader Live
Fraud victims let down by outdated 1960s policing structure, report finds
Think tank the Police Foundation has called for a major overhaul of how law enforcement deals with fraud, which makes up around 40% of total crime in Britain. In the year to December 2024, there were an estimated 4.1 million incidents of fraud, up a third on the previous year, according to the annual Crime Survey for England and Wales. The Police Foundation report, published on Thursday, made a series of recommendations including setting up a UK Crime Prevention Agency and a national policing body to deal with fraud. The issue should be dealt with at a UK level alongside terrorism and serious and organised crime including economic and cyber offences, it said. It also called upon regional mayors and police and crime commissioners to take a so-called public health approach to fraud, raising awareness about how to avoid being scammed. The report concluded: 'Fraud has become the single biggest form of crime affecting people in the UK and yet our policing institutions have not caught up with the scale of that change. 'We have a 1960s local policing structure trying to fight a 21st century cyber-enabled cross-border crime. 'As a result the police are achieving limited success and victims are receiving too little by way of service.' While the report found that a lot of prevention work needs to be done outside policing, it also called for reform of how the police deal with fraud by 2030. Michael Skidmore, head of serious crime research at the Police Foundation, said: 'Fraud is a high-volume, harmful crime, often perpetrated online by sophisticated networks that operate across police force and international borders. 'In comparison, our policing response is under-resourced, under-skilled and locked into a reactive, geographically bounded policing model developed to tackle the local crime problems of the 1960s. 'We are calling for a wholesale shift to a prevention-focused response. 'We need a new national lead body with a ringfenced budget and local and regional tasking powers, greater private sector collaboration and an uplift in skills. 'The current model is simply unsustainable, given the scale, harm and sophistication of the fraud challenge we face today.' The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that around 14% of fraud is reported to police or the centralised Action Fraud service. A total of 1,214,639 fraud reports were made to police in the year to March 2024, of which 3,641 ended with someone being charged with a crime. Research by report sponsor Virgin Media O2 using freedom of information requests suggested that only 6% of reports to Action Fraud were passed to police forces for investigation in 2023/24. Three of the forces in England and Wales had no officers dedicated to investigating fraud, the telecoms giant found. The report also said that in March 2021 there were 866 economic crime officers in English and Welsh police forces, equal to 0.64% of the total workforce when fraud is 40% of crime. Murray Mackenzie, director of fraud prevention at Virgin Media O2, said the company had blocked fraudulent transactions worth more than £250 million in one year. He added: 'With overall fraud prosecutions falling despite a 33% jump in cases last year, the UK is failing to effectively tackle fraud, and criminals are stealing with no real prospect of ever facing justice.' The report said that of 252 police officers and staff surveyed by YouGov between March 31 and April 4, 88% disagreed that police have enough resources to tackle fraud. When the author asked one unnamed senior officer what the National Fraud Squad is, a scheme set up by the previous government, they laughed, the report said. A series of recommendations in the report also includes a call for the private sector to be pushed to share data that could prevent fraud with the police. Deputy Commissioner Nik Adams, national co-ordinator for economic and cyber crime for the City of London Police, said: 'The response to fraud has been improving. 'It is not about a badly designed system; it is about sustainably resourcing and strengthening the response to keep pace with this constantly evolving threat. 'To accelerate further fraud reductions, the wider system, especially the tech sector, need to make online platforms much more hostile to criminals.' He said that City of London Police is 'leading a national economic crime strategy to increase fraud investigators and the use of financial investigation to seize assets, including crypto currency, from criminals using specialist investigation and policing powers.' Its officers are also working with watchdog His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services to make sure local forces understand what they need to do to tackle fraud, he added.
