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News

News Archives: Index

October 7, 2010: Probation Set For Industrial Action

October 5, 2010: Turning Prisoners Into Taxpayers

October 4, 2010: Murder Changes Now In Force

September 20, 2010: Probation Programmes Face Cuts

August 24, 2010: Victorian Poor Law Records Online

August 10, 2010: Justice Job Cuts

July 28, 2010: Prison Violence Growing

July 22, 2010: Police Numbers: Latest Figures

July 22, 2010: New Jurisdiction Rules

July 16, 2010: CCJS On Prison And Probation Spending Under Labour

July 15, 2010: Latest Statistics On Violent And Sexual Crime

July 15, 2010: Latest National Crime Figures

July 15, 2010: New Chief Prisons Inspector

July 14, 2010: Hard Times Ahead For Prisons: Anne Owers

July 14, 2010: Prison Does Not Work: Ken Clarke

July 13, 2010: Criminal Justice Reform: Sentencing and Rehabilitation

July 13, 2010: Criminal Justice Reform Priorities

July 12, 2010: What Price Public Protection, Asks Probation Chief Inspector

July 12, 2010: NOMS has failed, says Napo

July 10, 2010: IPCC To Investigate Death of Raoul Moat

July 9, 2010: Women In Prison: New Report

July 9, 2009: Unjust Deserts: Imprisonment for Public Protection

July 8, 2010: Police Search Powers Change

July 7, 2010: Make 'Legal High' Illegal, Says ACMD

July 2, 2010: Failing Children In Prison

July 2, 2010: Police Buried Under a Blizzard of Guidance: HMIC

July 1, 2010: Freedom To Change The Law?

June 30, 2010: A New Outlook On Penal Reform?

June 30, 2010: Revolving Door Of Offending Must Stop, Says Clarke

June 30, 2010: Ken Clarke: Speech on Criminal Justice Reform

June 29, 2010: No More Police Targets

June 26, 2010: Family Intervention Projects Questioned

June 25, 2010: Cutting Criminal Justice

June 24, 2010: Napo on Sex Offenders Report

June 23, 2010: Closing Courts: The Cuts Begin

June 23, 2010: Strategy To Tackle Gangs

June 15, 2010: Courts and Mentally Disordered Offenders

June 8, 2010: Working With Muslims in Prison

June 1, 2010: Your Chance To Nominate a QC

July 15, 2010: Latest Statistics On Violent And Sexual Crime

The latest National Statistics on crime in England and Wales are released today. They are based on interviews from the British Crime Survey (BCS) and crimes recorded by the police in the financial year 2009/10. They include statistical data on the rate of violent and sexual crime.

Provisional data show the police recorded 615 homicides in 2009/10. This is a fall of 6% compared with the previous year. Attempted murders increased by 2%, to 588, in 2009/10.

Police recorded sexual offences increased by 6% between 2008/09 and 2009/10.

This increase needs, however, to be interpreted with caution. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has been taking steps to enhance the recording of serious sexual offences and this has culminated in inclusion of good practice guidance in the Home Office Counting Rules for crime from April 2010.

While these were not formally in place in 2009/10, the figures for 2009/10 may reflect initiatives undertaken by forces over the last year as they anticipated their introduction.

The BCS provides estimates of the proportion of adults who have been a victim of sexual offences via an additional self-completion module. These figures show that there was not a statistically significant change in the proportion of men and women aged 16 to 59 who were victims of sexual assault in the last year compared with the 2008/09 BCS.

The 2009/10 BCS shows that 1% of men and 2% of women in the 16 to 59 age range were victims of a sexual assaults, with the majority of these assaults being less serious.

Provisional figures on police recorded firearm offences show a 3% fall between 2008/09 and 2009/10. Firearm offences have shown a downward trend following rises between 2002/03 and 2005/06.

The fall over the last year was largely due to a decrease in offences involving a handgun, which fell by 13%. The number of injuries resulting from firearm offences increased by 8% between 2008/09 and 2009/10 (from 1,764 to 1,901). This follows a 46% fall in firearm offence injuries last year.

Comparable year-on-year figures for selected violent knife and sharp instrument offences recorded by the police are published for the first time. There was a 7% fall in knife and sharp instrument offences between 2008/09 and 2009/10, from 36,335 offences to 33,771. The police provisionally recorded 205 knife and sharp instrument homicides in 2009/10, a fall from the 255 recorded in 2009/10.

The police recorded 75,101 robberies in 2009/10, a fall of 6% on the previous year. As the number of people interviewed by the BCS who have experienced robbery is relatively low, estimates for robbery tend to fluctuate from year-to year.

For context the 2009/10 BCS showed a non-statistically significant increase of 23% in BCS robberies (this follows a 13% non-significant reduction in the 2008/09 BCS compared with 2007/08).