‘Distorted police statistics’ downplay domestic abuse reports, says Commissioner

However, Domestic Commissioner Nicole Jacobs says changes to police crime counting rules have “downplayed the number of domestic abuse reports” and the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) statistics do not reflect “the true number of victims reporting to the police”.

Ms Jacobs said the new rules introduced in June 2023 by the Home Office allowed police to count only one crime for each time a victim comes forward and record fewer crimes of threatening or abusive messages.

But she says domestic abuse is “very rarely a one-off offence”.

The CSEW statistics for the year ending September 2023 are the first to capture a full three months of data collected since these rules came into force.

New analysis from the Domestic Abuse Commissioner shows that there were 23,000 fewer recorded crimes of domestic abuse when compared with the same quarter in the preceding year.

There has also been a considerable decrease of 42 per cent in the number of malicious communication offences recorded by the police, when comparing July to September 2023 to the same quarter in 2022, said Ms Jacobs. These crimes include threatening or abusive messages, which are commonly reported by domestic abuse victims.

Public order offences with a domestic abuse flag are also down by 24 per cent, a reduction of almost 3,000 when comparing July to September 2023 with the same quarter in 2022.

“Police are no longer required to count malicious communications and public order offences in certain circumstances, according to the new counting rules,” said Ms Jacobs.

Reports of domestic abuse remain high at 862,765 in the year ending September 2023, and made up almost one in six crimes reported to the police, and a third of violence against the person crimes.

The conviction rate has increased slightly to approximately five per cent and the charge rate to six per cent, but remains “unacceptably low”, says the Domestic Abuse Commissioner.

She says these counting rule changes fly in the face of the Home Office’s own commitment to “increase reporting to the police of domestic abuse-related incidents and recorded crimes,” stated in the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan 2022.

Ms Jacobs said: “I fear that this reduction in police-recorded domestic abuse is down to a change in counting, not a change in the true number of victims reporting to the police.

“With victim trust in the criminal justice system at an all-time low, it is a serious mistake to prioritise administrative ease over accurate reporting. This downplays the reality for victims and the work of police officers who are trying to protect them.

“I fear that with fewer crimes counted, domestic abuse will become a lower priority and it will be impossible to understand police activity on domestic abuse, which is critical in improving the police response. These new counting rules must be ceased pending a robust evaluation of their impact.”

She added: “Domestic abuse is a devastating and widespread crime, making up one in six reports to the police. It’s time for our justice system to get to grips with this very serious problem.

“All eyes are watching the upcoming domestic abuse Joint Justice Plan from policing leaders, which I hope will turn things around across all 43 forces. The safety of victims and survivors across the country depends on it.”

Ms Jacobs said she has written to Policing Minister Chris Philp to express her concerns and ask for a meeting.

The latest CSEW data showed there were an estimated 8.5 million offences across all crime types in the year ending September 2023.

While the latest figures do not show a statistically significant change in total crime compared with the year ending September 2022, they do follow a long-term downward trend and more recent falls since the beginning of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, with total crime 17 per cent lower than the year ending March 2020.

Compared with the year ending September 2022, there was some variation for individual crime types:

• Fraud decreased by 13 per cent, with notable reductions in advance fee fraud (33 per cent) and other fraud (40 per cent);
• Computer misuse increased by 30 per cent, mainly because of a 36 per cent rise in unauthorised access to personal information; and
• Criminal damage decreased by 21 per cent, including a 30 per cent fall in criminal damage to a vehicle.

Police recorded crime data for the year ending September 2023 also showed:

• The number of homicides decreased by nine per cent to 591 offences compared with the year ending September 2022 (651 offences);
• Police recorded robbery offences increased by 12 per cent to 79,091 offences compared with the year ending September 2022 (70,792 offences), but they remained 12 per cent lower than the year ending March 2020 (90,187 offences);
• Offences involving knives or sharp instruments (excluding Greater Manchester Police and Devon and Cornwall Police) increased by five per cent (to 48,716 offences) compared with the year ending September 2022 (46,367 offences), but remain five per cent lower compared with the year ending March 2020 (51,228 offences);
• Offences involving firearms (excluding Devon and Cornwall Police) increased by three per cent (to 6,233 offences) compared with the year ending September 2022 (6,024 offences);
• Theft offences increased by nine per cent to 1.8 million offences compared with the previous year, this was largely a result of a 32 per cent increase in shoplifting offences; and
• There was a slight increase (two per cent) in vehicle offences compared with the previous year, which included an eight per cent increase in theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle compared with year ending September 2022, and a 17 per cent increase compared with the pre-coronavirus pandemic year ending March 2020.