The document, which highlights reported crime in the two countries between October and December of last year, shows significant reductions in sexual assaults, fraud and forgery.
Although violent crime as a whole fell by two percent, an eight percent rise in robberies is a reminder of work to be done.
Tony McNulty, the Home Office Minister for Police and Security, believes technology is often at the heart of such crime. “Mobile phones are still involved in over 50 percent of street robberies, which is why we have established regional robbery action plans to address a problem concentrated in specific areas.”
Highlighting the security industry’s prior success, he continued, “We have also worked with the mobile phone industry to ensure over 80 percent of stolen phones are now blocked within 48 hours.”
The introduction of new security measures such as The Central Equipment Identification Register (CEIR), which keeps a list of all handsets reported as stolen by the public, is thought to be behind this success. Each day network operators in the UK can download the list and block phone use accordingly.
Vandalism is another area of concern in the twelve months to December 2006, with an alarming 11 percent increase reported.
Despite this, the British Crime Survey suggests that overall crime remained stable at just above 11 million offences in 2006. The risk of being a victim of crime stood at 24 percent, a slight increase on the previous year.
Mr McNulty added that overall figures showed a steady fall in crime throughout the decade, with the BCS suggesting the fall could be as large as one third from 1996. However, interviews conducted by the BCS during 2006 show that the proportion of adults with a high level of worry about burglary, car crime and violent crime remained stable when compared with the previous year.
Ian Johnston, from Association of Chief Police Officers, has insisted that while robberies were up, the new statistics show that targeted policing and cooperation with the security industry is reducing key areas of crime.
“In a time of increased media attention surrounding crimes involving firearms, firearms offences have actually significantly reduced,” Johnston said.
8,615 new firearm certificates were granted in 2005/06, a decrease of 5 percent from 2004/05.
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