Crime measured by survey has more than halved since 2010 — but fraud, knife offences and police-recorded crime tell different stories
The Crime Survey for England and Wales — the most reliable measure, including unreported crime — shows overall crime well below its 2010 level. Fraud (also survey-estimated) and knife offences (police-recorded, a different method) are the clearest exceptions, both moving the other way.
Read this first — what else changes the meaning of the headline
- Overall crime (Crime Survey)
- 4.33m
Down 55% since 2010 — this is SURVEY-ESTIMATED victimisation, excluding fraud and computer misuse, England and Wales.
- Fraud (survey-estimated)
- 4.07m
Now the single largest crime type, surging since 2017 — measured separately from the "overall crime" figure above, not included in it.
- Knife offences (police-recorded)
- 48,800
Down 8% from last year but still well above 2011 levels — a POLICE-RECORDED count, a different measurement method from the survey figure above, with two recording-practice breaks in the series (2019, 2024).
- Homicide (police-recorded)
- 499
Down 7% year on year — the lowest since comparable recording began in 2003. Also police-recorded, not survey-estimated (homicide cannot be measured by household survey).
55% below the 2010 level on this measure — a genuine long-term fall, though it does not include fraud or computer misuse, both measured separately and both rising.
Crime Survey Incidents — England and Wales (millions)
The Crime Survey for England & Wales — the most reliable measure, including unreported crime — shows total crime (excluding fraud) more than halved since 2010. Violent crime and knife crime are the exceptions to this improvement.
View data table
| Year | CSEW incidents (m, excl. fraud) |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 9.54 |
| 2011 | 9.71 |
| 2012 | 9.59 |
| 2013 | 8.76 |
| 2014 | 7.55 |
| 2015 | 7.18 |
| 2016 | 6.53 |
| 2017 | 6.06 |
| 2018 | 6.25 |
| 2019 | 6.43 |
| 2020 | 5.66 |
| 2021 | — |
| 2022 | — |
| 2023 | 4.39 |
| 2024 | 4.59 |
| 2025 | 4.6 |
| 2026 | 4.33 |
England and Wales · Source: ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Appendix Table A1a · as of Year ending March 2026 (released 23 July 2026)
What the facts show
Crime incidents by type (England and Wales)
Homicide and knife/sharp instrument offences updated to ONS’s Year Ending March 2026 release (published 23 July 2026); remaining categories reflect the prior Year Ending June 2025 release pending refresh. Each row states whether it is survey-estimated (Crime Survey) or police-recorded — the two methods are not directly comparable to each other.
Source: ONS Crime Survey for England and Wales & Police recorded crime — Crime in England and Wales: year ending March 2026 (homicide, knife/sharp instrument) and year ending June 2025 (other categories, pending refresh).
Knife and Sharp Instrument Offences — England and Wales ('000s)
Knife and sharp instrument offences have risen steadily since 2014, concentrated among young men in deprived urban areas — the clearest police-recorded exception to the general Crime Survey decline.
View data table
| Year | Knife offences ('000s) |
|---|---|
| 2011 | 36.1 |
| 2012 | 33.7 |
| 2013 | 28.9 |
| 2014 | 28.3 |
| 2015 | 29.2 |
| 2016 | 32.7 |
| 2017 | 39.5 |
| 2018 | 47.5 |
| 2019 | 52.5 |
| 2020 | 55.2 |
| 2021 | 44.7 |
| 2022 | 49.2 |
| 2023 | 51.7 |
| 2024 | 54 |
| 2025 | 53.1 |
| 2026 | 48.8 |
England and Wales · Source: ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Appendix Table B6a (including Greater Manchester) · as of Year ending March 2026 (released 23 July 2026)
Policing
Police officer numbers were significantly cut after 2010, partially recovered under the 2019–2023 uplift programme, but a precise per-capita (officers per 1,000 population) series could not be independently confirmed against matching ONS population denominators. The confirmed absolute headcounts (Home Office police workforce statistics, full-time equivalent) are shown below. Meanwhile, crime has become more complex — particularly fraud, cybercrime, and organised crime — stretching resources further.
Source: Home Office, Police workforce, England and Wales. Absolute headcounts; a per-1,000-population ratio was not shown as it could not be confirmed against matching ONS mid-year population estimates.
“Crime has fallen” is true and incomplete at the same time
Different crime types, measured different ways, over different periods, do not add up to one simple story.
Two different measurement methods, not directly comparable
Source: ONS Crime Survey for England and Wales; Home Office Police Recorded Crime
Fraud and computer misuse are excluded from the headline "overall crime" figure
Source: ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Appendix Table A1a
The knife-offences series has two recording breaks that limit comparability
Source: ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Appendix Table B6a
There is a genuine data gap, not just a low point, in 2021–2022
Source: ONS Crime Survey for England and Wales
What it means
- What the data directly shows
- CSEW-measured crime (excluding fraud and computer misuse) has fallen by more than half since 2010; fraud and knife offences, measured separately and by different methods, have both risen over a similar period; homicide is at its lowest recorded level since 2003.
- What can reasonably be inferred
- Britain is, on the best available continuous survey measure, safer from the crime types that measure covers than it was in the early 2010s — but 'crime' as a single word covers categories moving in opposite directions, so a single 'safer' or 'more dangerous' verdict for the whole picture would overstate what the evidence shows.
- What is disputed
- How much of the shift toward fraud reflects genuinely more fraud happening, versus better detection and reporting as more of life moved online, is disputed among criminologists — the data on this page cannot fully separate the two explanations.
- A political judgement, not a finding
- Whether policing resources should shift toward fraud/cybercrime investigation, toward knife-crime prevention, or stay distributed as they are is a political and operational choice this data does not make for the reader.
- What the evidence cannot establish
- This data cannot establish the true scale of unreported, undetected crime by definition, nor precisely how much of the knife-offences trend is a real change in offending versus a change in recording practice given the two documented breaks in that series.
What people often get wrong
What people often think
“Crime has fallen, so Britain is simply safer than it was.”
What the evidence shows
Overall Crime-Survey-measured crime (excluding fraud) has fallen sharply — but fraud, now the single largest crime type, and knife offences have both risen over a similar period. 'Safer' depends entirely on which crime type and which period you mean.
What can change this
Where there are meaningful levers, drivers or constraints on this picture.
Specialist digital/fraud investigation capacity
Current policyFraud requires specialist digital investigators — a different skill set and resourcing model from traditional policing, and the fastest-growing crime category on this page.
- Evidence:
- Fraud incidents (4.07m, survey-estimated) are now the largest single crime category, as shown above.
- Expected effect:
- Increased specialist capacity would plausibly improve detection and prevention rates, though this page does not carry a registry-verified figure quantifying that effect.
- Time horizon:
- Years — specialist training and capability-building take time.
- Trade-offs:
- Resources moved toward fraud investigation are resources not available for other policing priorities, given headcount only recently recovered to 2010 levels.
- Unknowns:
- How much of the fraud rise reflects genuinely more offending versus better detection as more of life moved online.
Continue police workforce levels at or above the post-uplift level
Current policyPolice officer numbers fell from 141,690 (2010) to a low of 119,959 (2018) before the 2019-2023 uplift programme brought them to 146,868 (Sep 2024).
- Evidence:
- Home Office police workforce statistics, as tabled above.
- Expected effect:
- Sustained workforce levels support capacity across all crime types, including the more complex categories (fraud, cybercrime, organised crime) that require more resource per case.
- Time horizon:
- Ongoing — officer training and retention take years.
- Trade-offs:
- Requires sustained budget commitment against other public-spending priorities.
- Unknowns:
- The precise relationship between officer numbers and crime rates is contested in the wider research literature and not settled by the figures on this page alone.
Targeted knife-crime prevention in the areas most affected
External optionKnife offences are concentrated among young men in deprived urban areas — a targeted rather than universal approach is what most existing prevention programmes attempt.
- Evidence:
- Knife and sharp instrument offences chart above; concentration pattern per ONS commentary.
- Expected effect:
- Targeted programmes have shown localised effects in some areas, though this page does not carry a registry-verified national evaluation figure.
- Time horizon:
- Years for a sustained trend change; some interventions show effects sooner.
- Trade-offs:
- Targeting specific areas/demographics raises its own fairness and stigmatisation questions that are outside this page's evidence base.
- Unknowns:
- How much of the recent 8% fall in knife offences reflects any specific policy versus the two recording-practice breaks documented above.
Local comparison
How this plays out locally
The figures above are England-and-Wales-wide totals from the Crime Survey and national police-recorded statistics. Hampshire’s local authority pages carry their own force-level crime module (Hampshire Constabulary data, a different geography and reporting basis from the national figures here) rather than a number recomputed from this page’s totals.
▸Detail data and technical notes
Overall crime: ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Appendix Table A1a. CSEW headline crime EXCLUDING fraud and computer misuse — the only basis that runs continuously from 2010. Crime more than halved, from 9.5m in the year to March 2010 to 4.33m in the year to March 2026. NOTE THE GAP: face-to-face interviewing was suspended for COVID, so ONS published no figures for the years ending March 2021 and 2022.
Knife offences: ONS, Crime in England and Wales: Appendix Table B6a (including Greater Manchester). Police-recorded offences involving a knife or sharp instrument, including homicide, years ending March. Offences rose steeply from 2014 to a 2020 peak, and fell 8% in the year to March 2026 to 48,774. TWO BREAKS IN SERIES: recording changed in April 2019 (NDQIS) and the Metropolitan Police corrected its recording in April 2024 without revising earlier years — comparisons across either break are not like-for-like.
Fraud, theft, violence, computer misuse, criminal damage and robbery figures reflect the prior Year Ending June 2025 CSEW release, pending refresh to the Year Ending March 2026 basis used for homicide and knife offences above — the two release dates are stated explicitly on each figure rather than implied to be the same.