Victims of crime

Published 21 June 2021

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Contents

1. Main facts and figures

• in the year ending March 2020, 13% of people aged 16 and over said they had been the victim of a crime at least once in the last year

• this was down from 17% in the year ending March 2014

• over the 7 years covered, the percentage of White people who said they were victims of crime went down from 17% to 13%

• men from Mixed ethnic backgrounds (21%) were more likely to be victims of crime than men from any other ethnic group for the 3 years from April 2017 to March 2020

• Asian people aged 75 and over (11%) were more likely to be a victim of crime than White people aged 75 and over (6%)

2. Things you need to know

What the data measures

The 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 used in the 2011 Census.

In the other data, estimates are shown for the following 5 aggregated groups:

• Asian
• Black
• Mixed
• White
• Other

This is because the number of people surveyed from some ethnic groups was too small to make reliable generalisations.

Methodology

Read the detailed methodology document for this data.

In the analyses by ethnicity and gender, age and socio-economic group, the data is an average for the 3 years from April 2017 to March 2020. 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.

Read more about:

• interpreting survey data, including how reliability is affected by the number of people surveyed
• how weighting is used to make samples more representative of the population

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: April 2013 to March 2020
• Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2020

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		2019/20
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	2019/20 %	2019/20 Sample size
All	17	35,371	16	33,350	15	35,324	14	35,420	14	34,715	15	34,163	13	33,735
Asian	19	1,824	16	1,649	18	1,790	15	1,956	16	2,013	15	2,078	15	2,065
Bangladeshi	17	138	12	123	15	135	19	168	18	182	11	215	14	191
Chinese	15	169	11	136	16	173	13	182	15	165	14	185	10	196
Indian	20	767	14	679	18	722	15	772	16	795	14	787	15	810
Pakistani	20	398	22	388	23	428	16	498	18	495	17	510	18	485
Asian other	15	352	14	323	15	332	13	336	14	376	16	381	12	383
Black	17	959	18	902	19	902	17	1,026	15	968	16	930	14	957
Black African	16	564	19	529	19	530	17	629	15	581	17	585	14	591
Black Caribbean	17	350	15	316	16	311	14	318	16	323	16	283	15	298
Black other		45	28	57	31	61	22	79	12	64	9	62	14	68
Mixed	27	339	28	309	21	364	20	370	22	375	19	372	20	416
Mixed White/Asian	24	80	28	90	16	94	17	105	29	87	12	90	14	117
Mixed White/Black African		46		45		44	13	56	16	63		49	18	56
Mixed White/Black Caribbean	29	120	29	98	21	135	20	121	16	120	23	123	25	125
Mixed other	29	93	23	76	26	91	29	88	26	105	25	110	21	118
White	17	31,980	16	30,212	15	31,967	14	31,673	14	31,003	15	30,424	13	29,919
White British	17	30,073	16	28,476	15	29,993	14	29,366	14	28,714	15	28,040	13	27,633
White Irish	21	322	17	299	17	287	10	296	12	295	13	304	12	258
White Gypsy/Traveller		12		10		15		21		15		10		11
White other	17	1,573	19	1,427	16	1,672	14	1,990	15	1,979	17	2,070	15	2,017
Other	14	236	15	234	17	242	15	349	17	300	15	285	16	277
Arab	10	88	10	83	10	87	18	141	20	100	21	96	17	110
Any other	16	148	17	151	21	155	12	208	15	200	11	189	14	167

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 2020, 13% 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 down from 17% in the year ending March 2014

• the percentage of people who said they were victims of crime ranged from 13% in the White ethnic group to 20% in the Mixed ethnic group

• over the 7 years covered, the percentage of White people who said they were victims of crime went down from 17% to 13%

• 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 2017 to March 2020 (3 years combined)
• Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2020

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

	All		Female		Male
Ethnicity	All %	All Sample size	Female %	Female Sample size	Male %	Male Sample size
Asian	15	6,156	15	3,080	15	3,076
Black	15	2,855	16	1,697	14	1,158
Mixed	20	1,163	19	649	21	514
White	14	91,345	14	49,258	14	42,087
Other	16	862	17	436	15	426

Download table data (CSV) Source data (CSV)

Summary of Victims of crime By ethnicity and gender Summary

The data shows that:

• men from Mixed ethnic backgrounds (21%) were more likely to be victims of crime than men from any other ethnic group

• women from Mixed ethnic backgrounds (19%) were more likely to be victims of crime than White women (14%)

• differences between men and women in other ethnic groups are not reliable

5. By ethnicity and age group

• Location: England and Wales
• Time period: April 2017 to March 2020 (3 years combined)
• Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2020

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	603	15	280	21	213	20	5,393	16	94
25-34	16	1,386	20	492	20	306	17	12,588	15	206
35-44	17	1,867	16	699	22	256	16	13,469	17	254
45-54	17	1,026	15	654	20	187	15	15,193	17	148
55-64	13	615	14	386	15	125	13	15,577	15	86
65-74	9	408	11	179	12	52	9	15,720		48
75+	11	251	6	165		24	6	13,405		26

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 2020:

• among White people, 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 and Mixed ethnic groups, the experience of being a victim of crime went down as age increased

• White 16 to 24 year-olds (20%) were more likely to be a victim of crime than Asian 16 to 24 year-olds (15%)

• Asian people aged 75 and over (11%) were more likely to be a victim of crime than White people aged 75 and over (6%)

• differences between other ethnic groups and age groups are not reliable

6. By ethnicity and socio-economic group

• Location: England and Wales
• Time period: April 2017 to March 2020 (3 years combined)
• Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2020

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 classification	Asian %	Asian Sample size	Black %	Black Sample size	Mixed %	Mixed Sample size	White %	White Sample size	Other %	Other Sample size
Managerial and professional occupations	18	2,187	17	884	23	421	14	33,511	17	267
Intermediate occupations	17	1,225	17	447	16	195	13	21,464	16	141
Routine and manual occupations	13	1,544	15	1,053	21	360	13	31,159	14	238
Never worked and long-term unemployed	13	652	6	198	25	52	14	2,335	12	103
Full time students	14	453	15	219	15	124	20	2,077	18	104
Not classified	8	95	7	54		11	9	799		9

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 2020:

• White full-time students (20%) were more likely to be victims of crime than White people in ‘routine and manual’ jobs (13%), ‘intermediate’ jobs (13%), ‘managerial and professional’ jobs (14%) and long-term unemployment (14%)

• Black people in 'managerial and professional' (17%), 'routine and manual' jobs (15%), ‘intermediate’ jobs (17%) and full-time students (15%) were more likely to be victims of crime than Black people in long-term unemployment (6%)

• White full-time students (20%) were more likely to be victims of crime than Asian students (14%)

• among people in ‘managerial and professional’ jobs, people from Mixed (23%) and Asian (18%) ethnic backgrounds were more likely to be victims of crime than White people (14%)

• among people in ‘routine and manual’ jobs, people from Mixed ethnic backgrounds (21%) were more likely to be victims of crime than White and Asian people (both 13%)

• among people in long term unemployment, people from Mixed (25%) and White (14%) ethnic backgrounds were more likely to be victims of crime than Black people (6%)

• differences between other ethnic and socio-economic groups are not reliable

7. Data sources

Source

Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2020

Type of data

Survey data

Type of statistic

National Statistics

Publisher

Office for National Statistics

Publication frequency

Yearly

Purpose of data source

The main aims of the Crime Survey for England and Wales are to:

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

The survey does not include all crimes. It excludes 'victimless' crimes (like possession of drugs) and crimes that victims cannot 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 the police or recorded by them.

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

8. Download the data

Victims of crime data - Spreadsheet (csv) 309 KB

This file contains the following: measure, ethnicity, year, geography, gender, age group, socioeconomic group, household income, value, standard error, confidence intervals (upper bound, lower bound).

Publication release date: 21 June 2021

full page history

1. 21 June 2021 Updated with the latest available data (for the year ending March 2020).

From: Office for National Statistics

Previous editions:

1. 23 September 2020
2. 14 May 2019
3. 14 August 2018
4. 23 February 2018

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