Crime
(asked on 13th September 2018) - View Source
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of trends in the proportion of reported crimes that lead to a caution or a charge in the last five years.
Crime outcomes for England and Wales are published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The table below shows the changes in the proportion of crimes (excluding fraud offences which are not recorded by the police) resulting in a caution or charge/summons for the last five years.
Volumes - published data | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 |
Cautions | 164,307 | 141,716 | 120,078 | 100,499 | 81,242 |
Charged/Summonsed | 604,728 | 592,900 | 561,462 | 527,236 | 495,655 |
Total Cautions and Charged/Summonsed | 769,035 | 734,616 | 681,540 | 627,735 | 576,897 |
Total Recorded Crime (excluding fraud) | 3,506,545 | 3,574,287 | 3,888,158 | 4,320,460 | 4,877,000 |
Proportion of crime resulting in caution or charged/summons | 22% | 21% | 18% | 15% | 12% |
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/crime-outcomes-in-england-and-wales-2017-to-2018
The likelihood of a crime resulting in a charge can vary for a number of reasons, including the complexity or severity of an offence or the difficulty in identifying a suspect.
Changes in charge rates are likely to reflect a shift in the nature of demand on the police, through a combination of improved crime recording by forces and more victims coming forward to report complex crimes which take longer to receive an outcome, such as domestic abuse or sexual offences.