North Wales Police recorded crime figures increase in the 12 months to June 2014

Figures released by the Office of National Statistics today show recorded crime in the North Wales rose by 1.11%

There were 36990 offences recorded by North Wales Police (NWP) in the 12 months to June 2014 – 406 (1.11%) more than the same period last year.

Here’s where it gets a bit confusing though, the figures recorded by actual Police forces are deemed to be less credible than those published by the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) which also came out today, these are the numbers from the 50,000 households who take part in the survey every year – have you ever been asked to take part? 

The problem is or at least has been the quality of crime recording ‘on the ground’ an interim report on crime data integrity by HMIC identified ‘serious concerns’ about the crime-recording process nationwide.

The gold-standard “national statistics” status has also been withdrawn from police recorded crime figures following repeated allegations that some of the quarterly published figures have been subject to “a degree of fiddling” writes the Guardian.

Latest figures from the CSEW show that, for the offences it covers, there were an estimated 7.1 million incidents of crime against households and resident adults (aged 16 and over) in England and Wales for the year ending June 2014.

This represents a 16% decrease compared with the previous year’s survey, and is the lowest estimate since the survey began in 1981.

In contrast, police recorded crime across the UK shows no overall change from the previous year, with 3.7million offences recorded in the year ending June 2014.

Prior to this, police recorded crime figures have shown year on year reductions since 2003/04.

So how did does that pan out in North Wales? 

You can see from the chart below the greatest decrease was in public order offences followed by bicycle theft.

The two biggest category risers were violence without injury and shoplifting.

The reporting of sexual offences continues to rise, this is against national backdrop of rape cases being at their highest ever level however, the increase in sex crimes is in part due to growing confidence among victims that police will treat their complaints seriously.