Britain’s falling crime conundrum

Contrary to many media headlines, the story of crime over the last quarter century is positive. The dominant trend is the long-term decline in property and violent crime.

In the 1990s, property and violence rates were around ten times what they are now. The reason for their decline is a rising tide of security improvements that has reduced crime opportunities – everything from engine immobilisers in cars, to double glazing and deadbolts in houses, to dual-factor authentication for payments and other services.

Not only have these discouraged theft, they have discouraged the violent crimes that go hand-in-hand. Bank and Post Office robberies, for example, are largely a thing of the past. And unable to get involved in easy property crimes, young people did not progress to violence.

Trends in violence, burglary and vehicle theft

Violence against women and girls, including domestic violence, has fallen by around two-thirds in the last quarter century – albeit it’s still unacceptably high. Though further research is required to confirm it, domestic violence appears more likely to be by men who committed other crimes in their youth. If so, it may be that when they can’t commit those earlier crimes, they are less violent in relationships when they are older.

Crime online

There have also been new and emerging types of crime, particularly internet-related offences. We know these are independent of the declines in other property crimes and violence, for three reasons.

There was a decade or more between the start of the “crime drop” in the early 1990s and the main increase in cybercrimes. This means it’s different cohorts of offenders, since most offenders are young. The skills and resources needed for cybercrime are also very different to those for burglary, car theft and other similar crimes. And cybercrime offenders are not necessarily even located in the same country.

But even the cybercrime picture may not be as bad as often portrayed. Crime Survey of England and Wales estimates of household fraud and computer misuse are available from 2016-17 onwards, and the trend has been relatively flat over the last decade (the chart below does exclude a pandemic-related uptick which subsided).

Household fraud and computer misuse estimates

You may be wondering why cybercrime hasn’t benefited from the same falls in crime opportunity structure (how easy crime is to commit) that have reduced property and violent crime. It’s true that online security measures are effective against some forms of offending, but rapid technological developments constantly create new opportunities for innovation by criminals. We’re still playing catch up as these crimes evolve, but with persistence we should be able to prevent them too.

There’s a similar explanation for another seeming anomaly: phone theft. It has increased because phones proliferated this century and make near-perfect theft targets. Crime science refers to such targets as CRAVED: they are concealable, removable, available, valuable, enjoyable and disposable (meaning easily re-sold). This explains why your phone rather than your fridge is stolen even when they cost the same.

Knife crime

Knife crime increases in the 2010s are one other counter-trend that still needs to be properly explained. But such crimes would not be possible without the widespread availability of knives, both online and in supermarkets.

Most households have lots of pointed knives in the kitchen, making them easy to grab during an argument. And with so many similar knives in the drawer, nobody notices if one goes missing. It is the pointed tip of kitchen knives that punctures major organs and arteries, potentially meaning a fight becomes a murder.

We have argued for removing pointed kitchen knives from general circulation, which is the only intervention likely to achieve the 50% reduction in knife crime to which the current government aspires. In case you didn’t notice, table knives are already round-tipped, so it is a small step to make kitchen knives safer too.

At the same time, and counterintuitively, the UK’s knife crime headlines are evidence of success in some forms of crime prevention. Consider that it is high-profile only because our gun and bomb control policies are so effective.

In 2022-23 the per capita rate of gun-related homicide in the United States was over 100 times that in the UK – or, put another way, UK gun control was 99% effective in comparison. And the prevented UK crime and homicide did not shift to knives or other crimes; there are dramatically fewer overall.

Likewise, of the few terrorist attacks that occur in the UK, they disproportionately involve knives. These attacks would be more numerous and far worse without the raft of gun and bomb control measures. Weapon control works, in other words.

This brings us to broader crime policy. More funds for policing won’t have much effect on crime. Since the long-term crime declines were due to private and public sector measures by agents other than the police, our police and government should be more focused on encouraging the private sector to take responsibility for the crime opportunities it “emits”. The phone industry, for instance, could have been incentivised decades ago to disable stolen phones, so a recent call to action by the Metropolitan police is very welcome.

Graham Farrell, Professor of Crime Science, University of Leeds; Toby Davies, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice Data Analytics, University of Leeds

This article extract is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.