Police Recorded Crime Statistics (WJEC Eduqas GCSE Sociology): Revision Note

Official statistics on crime

• Official statistics of crime recorded by police forces in England and Wales are reported to the Home Office and published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). They include:

  • Police-recorded crime – offences reported to and logged by the police

  • Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) – a large-scale victimisation survey of around 31,000 people a year (about 31,500 interviews in 2024/25)

    • Captures crimes that may not be reported to the police

    • Participants aged 16 and over are asked about their experiences of different crimes in the 12 months prior to the interview

Crime patterns and trends

• Official Criminal Statistics (OCS) are used to show trends and patterns in crime

• They tell us about the:

  • volume of crime (how much there is and whether it is going up or down)

  • main types of crime being committed

  • social characteristics of people who are reported, arrested or convicted

Volume of crime

• The CSEW estimated 9.6 million incidents of crime in the year ending March 2026, with no statistically significant change from the year before (9.4 million)

  • Fraud (4.5 million incidents) and computer misuse (798,000 incidents) showed no statistically significant change (ONS, 2026)

• Police recorded around 5.2 million crimes (not counting fraud and computer misuse) in the year ending March 2026, 1% fewer than the year before (ONS, 2026)

Main types of crime

• Crimes against people, e.g. violence, robbery and sexual offences

  • Knife crime: police recorded 48,774 knife-enabled offences in the year ending March 2026, 8% fewer than the year before (ONS, 2026)

• Crimes against property, e.g. theft, burglary, criminal damage

  • Property crime is much lower than in the mid-1990s, e.g. theft fell to about 2.7 million incidents in the year ending June 2026, 77% below the 11.6 million in 1995, and criminal damage fell to about 656,000, from 3.4 million in 1995 (CSEW)

'Typical' social characteristics

• This means the characteristics that are most often seen among people recorded in official statistics

• It is important to remember these are patterns, not descriptions of every individual who commits a crime

• Gender: in the year ending March 2026, 84% of arrests were of males and 16% of females (Home Office, 2026)

  • In 2022/23, men were arrested at around six times the rate of women (19.4 vs 3.3 arrests per 1,000) (Home Office)

• Ethnicity: in the year ending March 2026, Black people were arrested at 2.2 times the rate of White people (Home Office, 2026)

  • In 2022/23, 20.4 per 1,000 Black people were arrested, compared with 9.4 per 1,000 White people (Home Office)

• Age: Young adults are heavily represented in serious violence cases

• Class and area: OCS suggest many offenders come from working-class backgrounds and urban areas

• Differences in arrest and conviction rates by sex, ethnicity and class do not simply reflect who commits a crime

• The ONS warns that they are influenced by:

  • policing practices and priorities

  • where crime is concentrated

  • population structures (age, gender balance)

  • social and economic inequalities

Usefulness of police-recorded crime statistics

• Official police-recorded statistics give an incomplete picture of how much crime actually happens (they lack validity)

  • Sociologists argue they are not fully useful for showing the true level of crime in society

• Not all crimes are detected or witnessed

  • Crimes that are unseen or unknown can’t be reported — these are “invisible crimes”

  • E.g. domestic violence, online fraud, drug dealing

• Some crimes are dealt with privately

  • Crimes discovered in workplaces (e.g. theft or fraud) may be handled internally

  • Employers may fire the employee instead of reporting it to the police

  • These crimes are not recorded officially, so they don’t appear in statistics

• Underreporting by victims

  • Many victims choose not to report crimes to the police

  • Reasons include:

    • seeing the crime as too minor (e.g. petty vandalism, bike theft)

    • believing the police can’t or won’t act (e.g. hate crime)

    • feeling there was no real loss

    • thinking the police won’t handle it sensitively (e.g. sexual assault)

    • fear of consequences, especially in domestic violence

    • embarrassment, e.g. in online scams or dating fraud

  • This means official statistics often show less crime than the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)

• Not all reported crimes are recorded

  • Even when reported, some crimes are not recorded because:

    • the police think it’s too trivial

    • they doubt the honesty or accuracy of the report

    • they believe there’s not enough evidence

• The "dark figure" of crime

  • The “dark figure” refers to unreported and unrecorded crimes

  • These hidden crimes mean official statistics are incomplete

  • Sociologists, therefore, treat police statistics with caution

• Interpreting trends carefully

  • Increases in police-recorded crime don’t always mean more crime is happening — they could reflect:

    • better recording practices by the police

    • greater awareness of certain crimes (e.g. violence against women)

    • improved police sensitivity, encouraging more victims to report (e.g. hate crimes)

  • These factors make it difficult to compare trends over time