6 of the most common crimes in the UK
Crime often gets bundled into one neat package defined under national ‘crime rates’ in which the slightest rise or fall is headline news in the papers and news shows across the nation.
In order to work out the causes of a rise in crime, and understand exactly what is going on in our local area as well as further afield across the nation, it is important to separate crime into a number of different key groups.
This helps to avoid hysteria and identify when and where real action needs to be taken. For example, there could be a drop off in violent crime in your area but a big rise in fraud offences. Overall, this is reported as a rise in crime but realistically you should now feel safer walking around your local community.
To help delve a little detail into the causes of crime, this blog will look at some of the most common crimes that are committed on a daily basis in the UK.
Fraud
Often overlooked due to the lack of physical harm caused, fraud is far and away the most common crime in the UK. Destroying lives and leaving victims devastated just as often as any other crime, fraud cases have sky-rocketed in the online world, and there are no signs that the police or Government have a plan to put a halt on this trend anytime soon.
Victims of fraud often find themselves paying for goods or services that turn out to be fictitious, or tricked into giving their card or bank details to fraudsters over the phone or internet. It has never been more important to be careful when online, especially when purchasing goods or managing online banking.
Assault
Assault is another of the most common crimes committed in the UK, with a large number of different offences falling under the banner of assault. Everything from the common assault of threatening violence, GBH where permanent damage was done to the victim with a knife or other weapon comes under the term assault.
Serious assault Scotland is often fuelled by drink and the culture of drink across the UK has been identified as a major factor in the statistics for this type of offence being so high. In fact, ONS suggests that around 70% of all assaults that take place at night or the weekends are connected to alcohol abuse.
Theft
Many people assume that theft would be the biggest crime category in the UK, especially when considering that shoplifting, pickpocketing, burglary, and vehicle theft all fall under this category. Whilst fraud, another kind of theft, does eclipse it slightly, theft is still a huge issue and one that the police deal with on a daily basis.
Sexual offences
It is incredibly difficult to determine exactly how many sexual offences occur on an annual basis as many horrific crimes go unreported by those in abusive relationships or who don’t report the crimes against them for any number of other reasons. If every sexual offence that was committed was reported to the police, this category of crime would likely be close to the largest, if not the largest, group of crimes committed on an annual basis. ONS figures suggest that just 1 in 6 women who are raped ever report the incident to the police, a shocking statistic that highlights the extent of the problem across the country.
Murder
The most high profile of all the crimes on this list, it is murders that dominate the news, so you could be forgiven for thinking that they rank high on the list of the most common crimes committed in the UK.
The truth, however, is that whilst these are the most devastating of all crimes committed, they are not common, especially in comparison to other types of crime in the UK. Hundreds of thousands of crimes are committed across the UK on an annual basis and murders account for well under 1% of these, although this is hardly a comfort to those affected.
Crime against society
This rather grand sounding group of crimes actually accounts for many of the most petty offences that are committed by members of the general public every single day. Possession of drugs, drug dealing, and particularly drunk and disorderly behaviour fall into this category, as do incidents of racism and hate crimes. The average copper on the beat across the country will likely deal with crimes against society most often and these will form the basis of many a community policing strategy. Local criminal lawyers will also tend to spend a pretty significant portion of their time defending those who have been accused of crimes against society.