Crime still falling but at slower rate

Recorded crime in England and Wales has fallen by 1.4% to 4.5m offences a year, and includes the first reduction in violent crime seen for many years, according to home office figures published yesterday.

The reduction in the underlying trend in the crime figures recorded by the police is masked by the introduction of new counting rules that attempt to give a more accurate picture and increase the coverage of the official crime statistics. The effect of the change is to add around 600,000 offences, and to increase the headline figure by 14% to 5.1m offences recorded in the year to March 1999.

The new counting method tries to reflect more accurately the number of victims of crime; it also for the first time dis closes that 112,576 people were convicted of possessing illegal drugs during the year, dispelling the idea that cannabis has been effectively decriminalised.

The year on year comparison of the underlying trend in the crime rate shows that it has fallen for the sixth successive year, but the reduction is slowing down. Home office ministers stressed yesterday that they did not see a rise in recorded crime as inevitable, and they hope that the government's £400m crime reduction programme will help avert an increase.

A Downing Street seminar on crime hosted by Tony Blair yesterday heard chief constables outline plans for anti-crime initiatives, including a high-tech version of property marking that would see identity microchips inserted into all new electrical items so that the owner's identity and details were recorded when bought. The police would thus be able to identify the true owner using a simple swipe gun device if they suspected the goods were stolen.

Mr Blair said after the seminar: "The figures today show the underlying trend is actually down, but for the first time we are being open about the scale of the challenge we face. There is no point in trying to pull the wool over people's eyes and pretend the situation is better than it is. Yes, there are good things happening. Yes, the trend is down. But there is still a huge amount of crime, and we are all very aware of that."

Home office criminologists refused to speculate yesterday as to future crime trends or to the reasons lying behind the continuing fall, saying research was to be published shortly on the effect of changes in the economy and in population.

The new counting rules are intended to give a more accurate picture of crime which is reported and recorded by the police. It is still far short of the 20m crimes estimated by the British Crime Survey to be committed each year.

The new rules cover two main changes. The first expands the offences covered by the national crime figures to include all cases that can be tried in the crown court, including for the first time drugs possession (112,000); common assault (151,000); assault on a constable (21,510); cruelty to children (2,300); vehicle interference (48,000); and dangerous driving (4,500).

The second change involves counting crime by the number of victims involved rather than each offence. So when a thief breaks into six cars in a car park, it is counted as six crimes rather than one.

Among the 43 police forces in England and Wales, 29 recorded a fall in the underlying trend in crime. The biggest reductions were seen in Lancashire (down 10%) and Avon and Somerset (down 8%). The largest rises were seen in the City of London (up 17%) and Greater Manches ter (up 6%). Overall, the figures confirm the shift in the balance of crime from urban to rural areas.

The Police Federation said this year's overall 1.4% fall in crime was not as significant as last year's 8% drop, and blamed the slow-down of the decline on the struggle to stay ahead in the war against crime with diminishing resources and manpower.

The Liberal Democrats welcomed the new counting rules but warned that police numbers were continuing to fall, while the Conservative home affairs spokesman, David Lidington, said the figures showed the fall in crime was "grinding to a halt" amid a squeeze on police resources and the electronic tagging scheme to release prisoners from jail early.