A Rise in Theft 2018 / 2019

Figures from the latest Office of National Statistics (ONS) report show that theft is on the increase. The report was released on 23rd January 2020. We’ve been pouring over it to discover what the statistics mean for homeowners and business owners. There have been an estimated 3.6 million incidents of theft in the year ending September 2019. This is an 8% increase compared with the year ending 2017.

Are burglaries less common?

The ONS reports there is “No change in overall theft offences”. There has been a long term decline in overall theft offences, however this has stalled recently. The number of domestic burglaries reported rose from 644,000 in 2018 to 672,000 in 2019. One interesting figure on the report shows that 99.2% of burglaries happened in dwellings which did not have enhanced security features, such as CCTV or a burglar alarm. This is reassuring news for our customers, and a clear answer for anyone wondering if CCTV reduces crime or whether you need a burglar alarm.

Manchester left out

This years’ figures from ONS do not include any from Greater Manchester due to an IT error. With such a large amount of data missing, it will be very interesting to see how the data looks on the next release which is due September 2020.