Statistic about fall in violent crime does not include sexual offences

The Conservative party and the home secretary, James Cleverly, have shared an image on X (formerly Twitter) claiming violent crime is down by 44%.

But it’s worth noting that this figure does not include sexual offences.

The figure has been calculated by comparing the most recent Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) data with the year before the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition took office. 

This shows a decrease in the annual estimates of ‘violence incidents’—among people aged 16 and over—from about 1.8 million offences in March 2010 to 1 million in December 2023. This is a fall of 44%, in line with an overall decline from a peak in violence offences in 1995. 

The CSEW figures on violent crime come from a section of the survey involving an interview, and are estimates for offences including wounding, assault with minor injury and violence without injury. But sexual offences are covered by a self-completion part of the survey, rather than an interview, and so are reported separately from these violent crime figures. 

The prevalence of sexual assault (including attempts but excluding causing sexual activity without consent) among adults aged 16 to 59 was 2.1% in the year to March 2010 and 2.2% in the year to March 2020 (the latest comparable data). The prevalence of rape or penetration (including attempts) was 0.4% in the year to March 2010 and 0.5% in the year to March 2020.

More broadly, the ONS says the CSEW provides important information on longer-term crime trends, but advises it may not be the best measure of “higer-harm but less common types of violence, such as those involving a knife or sharp instrument (knife-enabled crime)”, which it says are better observed by police recorded crime. 

We’ve contacted the Conservatives about this and will update this blog if we receive a response.