Fear of crime

Published

Last updated 8 August 2023 - see all updates

1. Main facts and figures

  • in 2015/16, around one-fifth of people aged 16 and over in England and Wales believed that they were either ‘very likely’ or ‘fairly likely’ to be a victim of crime in the next year

  • overall, the figures for fear of crime have remained consistent between 2013/14 and 2015/16

  • in 2015/16, a smaller proportion of White people reported a fear of crime compared with Asian people, Black people, and those from the Other ethnic group

  • Asian people and those from the Other ethnic group had the highest levels of fear of crime

2. Things you need to know

What the data measures

The data measures fear of crime among people living in England and Wales.

The data comes from the Crime Survey for England and Wales. People were asked how likely they thought it was that they would be a victim of crime in the next year. People who answered ‘very likely’ or ‘fairly likely’ were classed as having a fear of crime.

A question about fear of crime was last included in the Crime Survey in the year ending March 2016.

Percentages are given to the nearest whole number.

Not included in the data

The data does not include people living in communal establishments (such as care homes, university accommodation and prisons).

Estimates based on fewer than 50 respondents are not shown because they are not reliable.

The ethnic groups used in the data

In the data By ethnicity over time, estimates are shown for the 18 ethnic groups listed in the 2011 Census.

In the other data, the number of people surveyed from some ethnic groups was too small to make reliable generalisations, so estimates are shown for the following 5 aggregated groups:

  • Asian
  • Black
  • Mixed
  • White
  • Other

Methodology

Read the detailed methodology document for this data.

The data for ethnicity and gender, age and socio-economic group is an average for the 3 years from April 2013 to March 2016. This is to make sure there are enough people to be able to make reliable generalisations. You can read more about combining multiple years of data and some of the issues involved.

The estimates on this page are based on survey data. You can read more about:

In the data file

See Download the data for estimates rounded to 1 decimal place.

3. By ethnicity over time

Location:
England and Wales
Time period:
2013/14 to 2015/16
Source:
Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2016
Percentage and number of people who had a fear of crime by ethnicity over time
2013/14 2014/15 2015/16
Ethnicity 2013/14 % 2013/14 Number 2014/15 % 2014/15 Number 2015/16 % 2015/16 Number
All 19 34,684 19 32,702 19 34,566
Asian 31 1,766 28 1,578 27 1,712
Bangladeshi 34 132 29 119 31 130
Chinese 15 165 19 131 16 166
Indian 33 744 29 642 27 694
Pakistani 35 388 27 375 30 400
Asian other 29 337 30 311 26 322
Black 27 918 24 875 26 854
Black African 23 542 22 509 25 504
Black Caribbean 32 331 26 309 28 292
Black other withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable 45 26 57 28 58
Mixed 29 329 20 303 21 359
Mixed White/Asian 33 77 18 88 21 93
Mixed White/Black African withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable 45 withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable 45 withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable 43
Mixed White/Black Caribbean 25 119 21 97 18 133
Mixed other 25 88 27 73 26 90
White 18 31,414 17 29,681 18 31,352
White British 18 29,565 17 27,990 18 29,458
White Irish 21 316 17 295 20 280
White Gypsy/Traveller withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable 12 withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable 10 withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable 15
White other 20 1,521 19 1,386 21 1,599
Other 25 229 26 223 27 235
Arab 21 86 25 79 30 84
Any other 27 143 26 144 25 151

Data withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable

Download table data for ‘By ethnicity over time’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity over time’ (CSV)

4. Data sources

Source

Type of data

Survey data

Type of statistic

National Statistics

Publisher

Office for National Statistics

Publication frequency

Yearly

Purpose of data source

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is a face-to-face survey in which people living in households in England and Wales are asked about their experiences of a selected range of criminal offences in the 12 months prior to the interview.

The CSEW is able to capture a broad range of victim-based crimes experienced by those interviewed, not just those that have been reported to, and recorded by, the police.

5. Download the data

Fear of crime - Spreadsheet (csv) 97 KB

This file contains the following: ethnicity, year, geography, gender, socio-economic status, value, denominator

Publication release date: 10 October 2017

Updated: 8 August 2023

full page history
  1. Restructure of the page
  2. Moved all contextual information to ‘Things you need to know’ and its new subsections. Increased visibility by adding it to the table of contents. Removed any duplication and added links to content about understanding our data. Charts, tables and the data file have not been updated.
  3. Replaced instances of 'Chinese people' and 'Bangladeshi people' in the 'By ethnicity over time' dimension with 'people from the [Chinese or Bangladeshi] ethnic group'.
  4. Some headings have been changed. No data or commentary has been updated.
  5. A minor improvement on the data download file
  6. Note added to this page to explain that data on fear of crime was not collected in 2016/17 and 2017/18.
  7. Minor updates for style and accuracy
  8. First published

From: Office for National Statistics

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