Victims of crime

Published 4 March 2020

This page has been archived.
It has been replaced by Victims of crime.

This page contains a factual mistake

Details can be found on the corrected page.

Contents

1. Main facts and figures

• in the year ending March 2019, 15% of people aged 16 and over said they had been the victim of a crime at least once in the last year
• this was a decrease compared with the year ending March 2014, when the figure was 17%
• younger people were more likely to say they were victims of crime than older people (on average for the 3 years from April 2014 to March 2017)

Things you need to know

These figures come from the annual Crime Survey for England and Wales. The survey asks people about their experiences of crime in the previous 12 months.

Surveys are completed in person and respondents have to be 16 and over.

Respondents can give details of any crimes they experienced, not only those they reported to the police.

The data measures whether someone was either:

• a victim of at least one crime
• a resident of a household that had been subject to at least one household crime (like burglary)

The data does not measure the number of times they were a victim, or the seriousness of any crime.

Some offences including homicide and sexual offences are not included in the main estimates.

Statistics on fraud and computer misuse have been included in crime survey data since the year ending March 2016. But as the data shown here dates back to 2013, the statistics and commentary exclude this type of offence.

The survey does not include:

• people living in communal establishments (such as care homes, university accommodation and prisons)
• crimes against commercial or public sector bodies

Reliability

All survey estimates are based on a sample of the population, rather than the whole population. This means there’s a degree of uncertainty which is greater when the number of respondents is small.

There are usually fewer respondents from ethnic minority groups due to the make-up of the general population. As a result, the level of uncertainty is higher for these groups.

The commentary for this data only includes reliable, or statistically significant findings.

Findings are reliable when we are confident they would be similar 19 times out of 20 if we repeated the same survey on other random people.

Differences are reliable if the range of values ('confidence intervals') for the 2 estimates being compared don't overlap.

Breakdowns by gender, age and socio-economic group

Reliable estimates broken down by gender, age and socio-economic group can't be made based on one year's data. This is because of low sample sizes.

Data for the 3 years to March 2017 has been combined to make sure estimates are reliable. The figures shown are averages for this 3-year period, which has not been updated with data for the years ending March 2018 and March 2019.

What the data measures

This data measures the percentage of people who said they had been the victim of at least one crime in the last year. The data is broken down by ethnicity.

These figures are based on information from the Crime Survey for England and Wales. Respondents and their households are designated either as victims or non-victims.

The ethnic categories used in this data

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

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

• Asian
• Black
• Mixed
• White
• Other

2. By ethnicity over time

• Location: England and Wales
• Time period: April 2013 to March 2019
• Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2019

Percentage of people aged 16 years and over who said they were victims of crime, by ethnicity over time

	2013/14		2014/15		2015/16		2016/17		2017/18		2018/19
Ethnicity	2013/14 %	2013/14 Sample size	2014/15 %	2014/15 Sample size	2015/16 %	2015/16 Sample size	2016/17 %	2016/17 Sample size	2017/18 %	2017/18 Sample size	2018/19 %	2018/19 Sample size
All	17	35,371	16	33,350	15	35,324	14	35,420	14	34,715	15	34,163
Asian	19	1,824	16	1,649	18	1,790	15	1,956	16	2,013	15	2,078
Bangladeshi	17	138	12	123	15	135	19	168	18	182	11	215
Chinese	15	169	11	136	16	173	13	182	15	165	14	185
Indian	20	767	14	679	18	722	15	772	16	795	14	787
Pakistani	20	398	22	388	23	428	16	498	18	495	17	510
Asian other	15	352	14	323	15	332	13	336	14	376	9	62
Black	17	959	18	902	19	902	17	1,026	15	968	16	930
Black African	16	564	19	529	19	530	17	629	15	581	17	585
Black Caribbean	17	350	15	316	16	311	14	318	16	323	16	283
Black other		45	28	57	31	61	22	79	12	64	9	62
Mixed	27	339	28	309	21	364	20	370	22	375	19	372
Mixed White/Asian	24	80	28	90	16	94	17	105	29	87	12	90
Mixed White/Black African		46		45		44	13	56	16	63		49
Mixed White/Black Caribbean	29	120	29	98	21	135	20	121	16	120	23	123
Mixed other	29	93	23	76	26	91	29	88	26	105	25	110
White	17	31,980	16	30,212	15	31,967	14	31,673	14	31,003	15	30,424
White British	17	30,073	16	28,476	15	29,993	14	29,366	14	28,714	15	28,040
White Irish	21	322	17	299	17	287	10	296	12	295	13	304
White Gypsy/Traveller		12		10		15		21		15		10
White other	17	1,573	19	1,427	16	1,672	14	1,990	15	1,979	17	2,070
Other	14	236	15	234	17	242	15	349	17	300	15	285
Arab	10	88	10	83	10	87	18	141	20	100	21	96
Any other	16	148	17	151	21	155	12	208	15	200	11	189

Data withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable

Download table data (CSV) Source data (CSV)

Summary of Victims of crime By ethnicity over time Summary

The data shows that:

• in the year ending March 2019, 15% of people aged 16 and over in England and Wales said they were a victim of a least one crime in the last year
• this was a decrease compared with the year ending March 2014, when the figure was 17%
• the percentage of people who said they were victims of crime ranged from 15% in the Asian, White and Other ethnic groups to 19% in the Mixed ethnic group
• over the 6 years covered, the percentage of White people who said they were victims of crime went down from 17% to 15%
• although the data shows changes in other ethnic groups, these are not reliable because of the smaller number of people surveyed

3. By ethnicity and gender

• Location: England and Wales
• Time period: April 2014 to March 2017 (3 years combined)
• Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2019

Percentage of people aged 16 years and over who said they were victims of crime, by ethnicity and gender

	All		Men		Women
Ethnicity	All %	All Sample size	Men %	Men Sample size	Women %	Women Sample size
Asian	16	5,395	16	2,651	16	2,744
Black	18	2,830	18	1,179	17	1,651
Mixed	23	1,043	21	438	25	605
White	15	93,852	15	42,755	14	51,097
Other	15	825	17	429	14	396

Download table data (CSV) Source data (CSV)

Summary of Victims of crime By ethnicity and gender Summary

The data shows that:

• in the 3 years to March 2017, White men (15%) were more likely than White women (14%) to say they were victims of crime in the last year
• women from Mixed ethnic backgrounds (25%) were more likely to say they were victims of crime than men and women from other ethnic groups
• differences between men and women in other ethnic groups are not reliable because of the smaller number of people surveyed

4. By ethnicity and age group

• Location: England and Wales
• Time period: April 2014 to March 2017 (3 years combined)
• Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2019

Percentage of people aged 16 years and over who said they were victims of crime, by ethnicity and age group

	Asian		Black		Mixed		White		Other
Age group	Asian %	Asian Sample size	Black %	Black Sample size	Mixed %	Mixed Sample size	White %	White Sample size	Other %	Other Sample size
16-24	15	582	23	264	27	215	22	6,333	12	103
25-34	19	1,372	20	546	25	274	19	12,695	14	191
35-44	16	1,540	17	723	23	225	17	14,070	22	226
45-54	18	822	19	656	22	152	16	16,191	14	128
55-64	13	546	13	340	13	90	12	15,594	14	87
65-74	14	359	6	168	3	55	8	16,174	8	62
75+	9	174	7	133		32	5	12,795		28

Data withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable

Download table data (CSV) Source data (CSV)

Summary of Victims of crime By ethnicity and age group Summary

The data shows that, in the 3 years to March 2017:

• in general, younger people were more likely than older people to say they had been the victim of a crime in the last 12 months
• among the White, Black and Mixed ethnic groups, the experience of being a victim of crime went down as age increased
• 16 to 24 year olds from the Mixed (27%), Black (23%) and White (22%) ethnic groups were more likely to be a victim of crime than people in the same age group from the Asian (15%) and Other (12%) ethnic groups
• differences between other ethnic groups and age groups are not reliable because of the smaller number of people surveyed

5. By ethnicity and socio-economic group

• Location: England and Wales
• Time period: April 2014 to March 2017 (3 years combined)
• Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2019

Percentage of people aged 16 years and over who said they were victims of crime, by ethnicity and socio-economic group

	Asian		Black		Mixed		White		Other
Socio-economic group	Asian %	Asian Sample size	Black %	Black Sample size	Mixed %	Mixed Sample size	White %	White Sample size	Other %	Other Sample size
Managerial and professional occupations	19	1,748	20	829	28	368	15	32,782	18	221
Intermediate occupations	17	1,079	17	488	20	212	14	22,252	16	149
Routine and manual occupations	15	1,461	18	1,041	22	300	14	32,947	16	222
Never worked and long-term unemployed	15	620	11	216	18	53	17	2,864	18	108
Full time students	14	433	20	221	21	104	21	2,380	8	118
Not classified	7	54		35		6	11	627		7

Data withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable

Download table data (CSV) Source data (CSV)

Summary of Victims of crime By ethnicity and socio-economic group Summary

The data shows that, in the 3 years to March 2017:

• White people in long-term unemployment (17%) were more likely to say they had been victims of crime than White people in ‘routine and manual’ jobs (14%), ‘intermediate’ jobs (14%) and 'managerial and professional' jobs (15%)
• Black people in 'managerial and professional' (20%) and 'routine and manual' jobs (18%) were more likely to be victims of crime than Black people in long-term unemployment (11%)
• White full-time students (20%) were more likely to be victims of crime than students from the Asian (14%) and Other ethnic groups (8%)
• among people in ‘managerial and professional’ jobs, 28% of people from Mixed ethnic backgrounds said they were victims of crime, the highest percentage out of all ethnic groups
• among people in ‘routine and manual’ jobs, people from Mixed ethnic backgrounds (22%) were more likely to be victims of crime than White people (14%)
• differences between other ethnic and socio-economic groups are not reliable because of the smaller number of people surveyed

6. Methodology

The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) involves a structured interview. Interviews usually take place in respondents' homes.

The survey covers around 35,000 households every year. Respondents have to be 16 and over.

In the year ending March 2019, 70% of respondents completed the survey (compared with 73% the year before).

Weighting:

Weighting has been applied to the raw data to compensate for:

• some addresses being more likely to be selected than others (given that some areas are more populated than others)
• the difference in response rates between different types of neighbourhood
• cases where only one residence can be selected in households with more than one
• different probabilities of a respondent being selected based on different sized households
• different response rates between different areas and age groups

Read more about how weighting is used to make samples more representative of the population.

Socio-economic groups:

The analysis By ethnicity and socio-economic group uses the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification. This categorises adults according to their occupational status.

Suppression rules and disclosure control

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

Rounding

Estimates in the charts and tables are given to the nearest whole number.

You can see more detailed estimates (rounded to 1 decimal place) if you download the data.

Quality and methodology information

Further technical information

The Crime Survey for England and Wales is based on a sample of the population. Because of this, estimates have quantifiable and non-quantifiable errors associated with them.

Non-quantifiable errors include:

• respondents recalling crimes that occurred outside the reference period
• respondents not mentioning a crime (because they didn't want do or they forgot to)
• respondents saying they reported crimes to police when they didn't
• the interviewer miscoding some responses

7. Data sources

Source

Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2019

Type of data

Survey data

Type of statistic

National Statistics

Publisher

Office for National Statistics

Publication frequency

Yearly

Purpose of data source

The main aim of the Crime Survey for England and Wales is to:

• measure people's experience of crime
• give reliable estimates about changes over time

The survey doesn't include all crimes. It excludes 'victimless' crimes (like possession of drugs) and crimes that victims can't report (like murder).

The survey aims to give a clearer picture of the extent of crime than police statistics. It can do this by including crimes that are not reported to (or recorded by) the police.

It can also provide a better indicator of long-term trends because it isn't affected by changes in how crimes are reported or recorded.

8. Download the data

Victims of crime - Spreadsheet (csv) 138 KB

This file contains the following: Measure, Ethnicity, Time, Geography, Gender, Age, Socio-economic classification, Household income, Value, Sample size, Standard error, Lower CI, Upper CI

Publication release date: 4 March 2020

full page history

1. 4 March 2020 Updated with the latest available data (for the year ending March 2019).

From: Office for National Statistics

Previous editions:

1. 14 May 2019
2. 14 August 2018
3. 23 February 2018

---

Share this page

Twitter Facebook LinkedIn