Victims of crime

Published 4 March 2020

Last updated 23 September 2020 - see all updates

This page corrects mistakes in a previous version. See details.

Contents

1. Navigate toMain facts and figures section
2. Navigate toThings you need to know section
3. Navigate to By ethnicity over time section
4. Navigate to By ethnicity and gender section
5. Navigate to By ethnicity and age group section
6. Navigate to By ethnicity and socio-economic group section
7. Navigate toData sources section
8. Navigate toDownload the data section

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)

2. Things you need to know

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, by ethnicity.

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)

Estimates in the charts and tables 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)
crimes against commercial or public sector bodies, fraud or computer misuse, homicide and sexual offences
the number of times people were victims of crime, or the seriousness of any crime

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.

In the analyses by ethnicity and gender, age and socio-economic group, 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, and have not been updated with data for the years ending March 2018 and March 2019.

In the data file

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

3. 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
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
	2013/14		2014/15		2015/16		2016/17		2017/18		2018/19
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	16	381
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	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	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	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	46	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	45	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	44	13	56	16	63	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	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	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	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	21	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	15	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	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

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

4. 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
Ethnicity	All %	All Sample size	Men %	Men Sample size	Women %	Women Sample size
	All		Men		Women
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 for ‘By ethnicity and gender’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity and gender’ (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

5. 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
Age group	Asian %	Asian Sample size	Black %	Black Sample size	Mixed %	Mixed Sample size	White %	White Sample size	Other %	Other Sample size
	Asian		Black		Mixed		White		Other
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	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	32	5	12,795	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	28

Download table data for ‘By ethnicity and age group’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity and age group’ (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

6. 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
Socio-economic group	Asian %	Asian Sample size	Black %	Black Sample size	Mixed %	Mixed Sample size	White %	White Sample size	Other %	Other Sample size
	Asian		Black		Mixed		White		Other
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	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	35	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	6	11	627	withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable	7

Download table data for ‘By ethnicity and socio-economic group’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity and socio-economic group’ (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

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

Updated: 23 September 2020

full page history

23 September 2020 Figures for the Asian Other group in 2018/19 have been corrected from 9% with a sample size of 62, to 16% with a sample size of 381
28 August 2020 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.
4 March 2020 Updated with the latest available data (for the year ending March 2019).