A special issue of a journal examined the subject of violence. It included articles on the link between mental disorder and violence; the interplay between victimization and violence among young women; the link between childhood maltreatment and adult violence; alcohol and violent behaviour in the night-time economy; bullying in prisons; and sexual offending against adults.
Source: Probation Journal, Volume 52 Number 4
Links: Table of contents
Date: 2005-Dec
The statistics watchdog said that the Home Office should be stripped of responsibility for publishing crime statistics, because public trust in the figures had been eroded, partly by departmental manipulation of their timing and context.
Source: Crime Statistics: User perspectives - interim report, Statistics Commission (020 7273 8008)
Links: Report | StatComm press release | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Dec
A statistical overview was published of the criminal justice system in England and Wales in 2004. British Crime Survey interviews in 2004-05 indicated a fall in crime of 7 per cent compared with the previous year. Violent crimes fell by 11 per cent.
Source: Criminal Statistics 2004: England and Wales, Statistical Bulletin 19/05, Home Office (020 7273 2084)
Links: Bulletin
Date: 2005-Nov
A report examined the links between crime, tenure diversification, and assisted mobility for housing tenants.
Source: Rowland Atkinson, Neighbourhoods and the Impacts of Social Mix: Crime, tenure diversification and assisted mobility, CNR Paper 28, Centre for Neighbourhood Research (0141 330 5408)
Links: Paper
Date: 2005-Nov
The government published a National Community Safety Plan, which set out key priorities for improving the safety of communities in the three years to 2008-09. Communities would have a bigger say in how crime and anti-social behaviour were dealt with, and would be able to 'trigger' local action by police and local authorities to tackle the most persistent problems. The Plan incorporated the fourth annual National Policing Plan, which set out national priorities for policing in England and Wales over the same period.
Source: National Community Safety Plan: 2006-2009, Home Office (0870 000 1585)
Links: Report | Summary | Home Office press release | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Nov
A report examined levels of self-reported offending, anti-social and other problem behaviours and drug use among different ethnic groups, and explored the extent to which different groups reported contact with the criminal justice system.
Source: Clare Sharp and Tracey Budd, Minority Ethnic Groups and Crime: Findings from the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey 2003, Online Report 22/05, Home Office (web publication only)
Links: Report
Date: 2005-Nov
A think-tank report said that people living in the poorest neighbourhoods were nearly six times more likely to be murdered than those living in the richest areas.
Source: Paddy Hillyard, Christina Pantazis, Steve Tombs, Dave Gordon and Danny Dorling, Criminal Obsessions: Why harm matters more than crime, Crime and Society Foundation (020 7848 1685)
Links: Report (pdf) | CSF press release | TUC press release
Date: 2005-Oct
A report said that the rising tide of violence in society was neither inevitable nor universal. Prevention was relatively simple: children who were loved well in infancy did not become violent teenagers or adults. But immature young parents with poor discipline techniques were creating aggressive children.
Source: George Hosking and Ita Walsh, Violence and What to Do About It: WAVE report 2005, Wave Trust (020 8688 3733)
Links: Report (pdf) | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Oct
The government responded to a report by a committee of MPs on hate crime in Northern Ireland.
Source: The Challenge of Diversity: Hate Crime in Northern Ireland - Government response to the Committee's Ninth Report of Session 2004-05, Fourth Special Report (Session 2005-06), HC 396, House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Response | MPs report
Date: 2005-Jul
The Crown Prosecution Service released its first full set of figures for hate crimes committed against members of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in England and Wales. Between April 2004 and March 2005, the CPS prosecuted 317 cases it identified as having a homophobic element. Of these, 190 resulted in a guilty plea and a further 34 resulted in conviction after trial. The conviction rate was 71 per cent.
Source: Press release 27 July 2005, Crown Prosecution Service (020 7796 8000)
Links: CPS press release
Date: 2005-Jul
Crime in England and Wales fell by 7 per cent in 2004-05, according to the British Crime Survey. Police-recorded crime for the same period was also down, by 6 per cent.
Source: Sian Nicholas, David Povey, Alison Walker and Chris Kershaw, Crime in England and Wales 2004/2005, Statistical Bulletin 11/05, Home Office (020 7273 2084)
Links: Bulletin (pdf) | Links to tables | Home Office press release | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Jul
Revised estimates of the unit costs of crime against individuals and households were published. They exhibited a broadly similar pattern to the costs previously estimated in 2000. The most costly crimes were those with a large estimated emotional and physical impact - homicide, wounding, robbery and sexual offences.
Source: Richard Dubourg, Joe Hamed and Jamie Thorns, The Economic and Social Costs of Crime Against Individuals and Households 2003/04, Online Report 30/05, Home Office (web publication only)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2005-Jun
A report examined statistics on violent crime, and sought to resolve apparent contradictions between the trends shown by police statistics and those in the British Crime Survey.
Source: Mike Hough, Catriona Mirrlees-Black and Michael Dale, Trends in Violent Crimes Since 1999/2000, Institute for Criminal Policy Research/King s College London (020 7836 5454)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2005-Apr
A report identified the extent, costs and impacts of interpersonal violence, the risk factors for victims and perpetrators, interventions that could be effective in reducing violence, and how the latter fitted into national policy.
Source: Clare McVeigh et al., Violent Britain: People, prevention and public health, Centre for Public Health/Liverpool John Moores University (0151 231 4510)
Links: Report (pdf)
Date: 2005-Mar
Researchers examined the feasibility of a general population survey of self-report offending and drug use. They said that development work showed that such a survey could be conducted successfully. But a full study covering young people (aged 16-29) living in communal establishments would not be justified.
Source: Crime and Justice Survey: General Population Feasibility Study, Online Report 04/05, Home Office (web publication only) | Crime and Justice Survey: Communal Establishments Feasibility Study, Online Report 05/05, Home Office
Links: Report 04 (pdf) | Report 05 (pdf)
Date: 2005-Jan
A report presented the first findings from the 2003 Crime and Justice Survey - a new national survey covering around 12,000 people aged 10-65 living in private household in England and Wales. It provided a picture of the extent and nature of offending across the general household population, covering a much broader age range than in previous self-report offending surveys. The survey did not cover people living in institutions, including prisons, or the homeless. The survey suggested that there were 3.8 million active offenders in England and Wales. A small minority of the most prolific offenders were responsible for the vast majority of offences - just 2 per cent of the whole sample (26 per cent of active offenders) accounted for 82 per cent of all offences measured.
Source: Tracey Budd, Clare Sharp and Pat Mayhew, Offending in England and Wales: First results from the 2003 Crime and Justice Survey, Research Study 275, Home Office (020 7273 2084)
Links: Study (pdf) | Findings (pdf) | Guardian report
Date: 2005-Jan