Leaked documents show violent crime is on the rise as police officer numbers fall

Police in Leicestershire have responded after leaked documents appeared to show a link between rising crime rates and falling police numbers.

They maintain that the figures reflect "an increased confidence in the public to report crime".

The leaked Home Office documents showed that violent crime is almost a third higher than nine years ago in the county, while police officer numbers had dropped by a quarter.

In Leicestershire, there were 18,985 violence against the person crimes reported in the year up to September 2017, the figures showed a 29 per cent rise from the 14,726 reports in the year ending September 2009.

But, over the same period, the full-time equivalent number of police officers at the force had fallen by 24 per cent, from 2,344 in September 2009 to 1,772 in September 2017, a loss of 572 officers.

The Guardian reported that a document entitled “Serious violence; latest evidence on the drivers” says that as crime demand has grown and officer numbers have fallen, “so resources dedicated to serious violence have come under pressure and charge rates have dropped. This may have encouraged offenders.”

The document also says “[It is] unlikely to be the factor that triggered the shift in serious violence, but may be an underlying driver that has allowed the rise to continue.”

In the year up to September 2017, Leicestershire had seen a 37 per cent rise in violent crime in total, which includes other offences involving violence. This was compared to 13,828 cases in total in 2009, while police officer numbers have dropped by one per cent or by 22 officers.

The force says that more than 40 per cent of these cases were domestic and a rise in the amount of recorded offences may in fact suggest people were more likely to report crimes to police.

A Leicestershire Police spokesman said: “The people who are surveyed by the Crime Survey of England and Wales suggests that crime is going down.

"However, the amount of crime being recorded by the police is going up across the country which maybe a reflection of an increased confidence in the public to report crime.

“From October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017, Leicestershire Police recorded 18,970 violent crimes - 7,731 of these were domestic related.

"It is also worth noting that from April, 2015, malicious communications is now recorded as a violent crime and this accounts for eight per cent of these violent crime offences."

Across England and Wales, there was a 20 per cent rise in violent crime, made up of violence against the person, both with and without injury, and homicide, in a year.

In the year ending September 2016, 1.8 million violent crimes were reported, rising to 1.29 million in the year ending September 2017.

Compared to the year ending September 2009, when there were 706,859 reports, numbers have more than doubled, with a 114 per cent rise, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics, with most forces seeing a low in the number of reports in 2012 or 2013.

Over the same period, police forces across England and Wales have lost 22,155 officers, a 15 per cent drop in numbers between September 2009 and September 2017, according to Home Office figures.

Numbers have dropped by 1 per cent in the past year, from 126,252 full-time equivalent officers in September 2016 to 125,364 in September 2017, a loss of 888 officers.