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British Transport Police Reveal Increase in Recorded Crime

There was a 7% increase in recorded crime on Britain’s railways in 2016/17, according to the latest statistics published by British Transport Police.

The latest annual crime statistics publication shows that 52,235 crimes were recorded on the railways between April 2016 and March 2017, compared to 48,718 the previous year. However, the British Transport Police highlight that the 7% increase corresponds with a rise in the number of rail journeys made during the year and is less than the 11% increase in all crimes recorded by police forces across England and Wales.

“Over the past decade, we have seen crime on the railway decrease,” commented Chief Constable Paul Crowther said. “Recorded crimes are more than a third lower than they were ten years ago, despite passenger journeys increasing by 44% in that time. Crime on the railway has decreased by 34% compared with 2006/07, and crimes like robbery have decreased by 82%, theft of passenger property by 47% and criminal damage by 55%.”

Looking at the figures in more detail they show that:

• There was a 9% increase in the number of sexual offences recorded in 2016/17 – 180 more offences than the year before.
• Hate crime increased by 23% compared with 2015/16 – a total of 2,756 offences were recorded in 2016/17. However, British Transport Police say that they believe there is still an issue of under-reporting.
• Violence against the person also increased by 12.5% - from 8,230 in 2015/16 to 9,263 recorded crimes last year. The majority of these (5,907) were common assaults, which meant the incident resulted in no injury for the victim.

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