Perceptions of crime

Belief that crime rates are rising applies across all crimes we asked about

Much has been made of the difference between recorded crime statistics – which appear to show crime decreasing – and public perceptions of crime, which consistently show that the public think crime is rising.

YouGov’s own historical trackers show that most Britons think crime is going up nationally, while locally they are split between those who say the same again and those who think levels are remaining about consistent.

But do perceptions of rising crime remain when people are asked to think about specific types of crime?

The answer is yes: our data shows that across all 11 crimes we asked about, in each case between 50% and 85% of adults in England and Wales believe they have increased over the last 10 years.

When it comes to those crimes people think have increased “a lot”, unsurprisingly topping the list is online fraud (67%), inundated as the public are by spam and scam messages.

Crimes that have been a particular focus of press attention also feature at the top of the list, with shoplifting (62%), phone theft (53%) and knife attacks (48%) seeing substantial numbers of people believing they have increased by “a lot”.

Perceptions that crime has been increasing are typically more common among older people, Tories and Reform UK voters.

Most adults in England and Wales don’t believe the police would try to investigate minor crimes

There has been much reporting of police failure – or reluctance – to get to grips with minor crimes, with analysis showing that for instance almost 90% of bike thefts went unsolved in England in 2022, and criticism that they had effectively decriminalised shoplifting.

The results show a widespread belief among the public (65-67%) that police would not attempt to properly investigate minor crimes such as phone theft, shoplifting or vandalism. More people than not also think police wouldn’t try and investigate burglary (50%), or online fraud (47%).

From our list of crimes, people are most likely to think police would attempt to investigate knife attacks (76%), violent assault (71%), and rape (66%).

Where are adults in England and Wales most likely to feel their local area is unsafe?

A separate recent YouGov survey found that 11% of Britons say they feel unsafe in their local area. For this project, we have modelled these results using our MRP technique to show sentiment at the local authority level.

Topping the tables for unsafe places is the inner London borough of Newham, where 43% say they feel their local area is unsafe. Following in second and third respectively are fellow London boroughs Barking and Dagenham, and Brent, with 36% and 34% respectively feeling the local area is unsafe.

These three local authorities are the only three in which the number saying they feel the local area is “very unsafe” hits double digits, at 10-12%.

Overall, there are 15 local authority areas where at least a one in four residents consider their local area to be unsafe, rising to 42 where at least one in five feel this way.

At the other end of the table, residents of South Gloucestershire are the very least likely to say they feel their local area is unsafe, at 3%.

See full data here

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Photo: Getty