BURGLARIES INCREASE AS ADDICTS STEAL TO PAY FOR DRUGS

BURGLARIES rose for the first time in eight years last year, partly because
of hard drug users committing break-ins to fund their addiction.

The increase in burglaries was also matched by a rise in thefts from
vehicles, according to the recorded crime figures for England and Wales
published today.

The rise in domestic burglary and theft from vehicles will cause some
anxiety in the Home Office because much of the recent falls in recorded
crime have been due to falls in burglaries and vehicle crime.

Domestic burglary rose by 7 per cent to reach 426,872 offences, while
overall burglary, including at commercial premises, rose by 5 per cent to
reach 878,535.

According to the separate British Crime Survey, based on interviews with
33,000 people, the North East was the area with the highest rate of
burglary at 454 per 10,000 households, followed by Yorkshire and Humberside
at 364. The South East was the lowest at 149 per 10,000 households.

The Home Office said that the recorded figures, which represent offences
recorded by officers in police stations throughout the country, were not an
accurate reflection of the extent of crime. Statisticans said the figures
had been inflated by 5 per cent because of a new method of recording
offences by police.

The figures for April 2001 to March 2002 show that recorded violent crime
rose by 11 per cent, with murders up 4 per cent to 886, attempted murders
up 21 per cent to 858, and racially aggravated common assault up 10 per
cent to 5,200.

Recorded sexual offences rose by 11 per cent to more than 41,000, with
reported rapes increasing by 14 per cent to more than 9,000. Indecent
assaults against women rose by 7 per cent to 22,000 and drug offences were
up 7 per cent to 121,000.

Of the 5.5 million crimes recorded by the 43 police forces in England and
Wales, 82 per cent were property offences and 15 per cent violent crime.
The figures showed that 38 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales
recorded increase in overall crime in 2001-2002. Detection rates continued
to be low -- there has been a overall decline in the past 20 years -- with
only 23 per cent or 1.3 million of the 5.5 million recorded crimes detected
by officers. In the Metropolitan Police area the detection rate was 14 per
cent.

For the first time the Home Office published in the same volume the
recorded crime statistics and the results of the ?2.5 million-a-year
British Crime Survey. The difference in the two methods of viewing crime is
that recorded crime is a measure of what police decide to record, while the
survey asks 33,000 people aged over 16 their experience of crime. The
survey does not include commercial premises.

The survey found that crime was stable after a period of decline with the
number of estimated offences at 13 million. It estimated that crime had
fallen by 22 per cent since 1997 and by 14 per cent over the last two
years. It said the chances of being a victim of crime were at about their
lowest since the survey began in 1981. Burglary was down 7 per cent, thefts
from and of vehicles down 7 per cent, and violent crime up 2 per cent. The
average person had a one in 50 chance of having their home burgled last year.

The British Crime Survey also found that 35 per cent of people believed
that crime had risen a lot in the first quarter of 2002 -- the same time
that Tony Blair, the Home Secretary David Blunkett, and the Metropolitan
Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens publicly expressed alarm at the extent
of street crime.

It also found that readers of tabloid newspapers were much more likely to
consider that the national crime rate had risen between late 2001-2002
compared with readers of broadsheets.

Recorded crime rose by 1 per cent across the EU states between 1996 and
2000, but fell by 8 per cent in England and Wales, according to
international figures released today by the Home Office. Only Ireland and
Italy had larger falls over the five years, and eight EU countries showed
rises from 2 per cent in Finland to 17 per cent in Belgium. But violent
crime rose by 15 per cent in England and Wales over the five years against
an average rise of 13 per cent in the EU.

The survey also shows that domestic burglary, car crime and drug
trafficking offences declined across the whole of the EU but at a higher
rate in England and Wales.

Burglaries in England and Wales dropped by 15 per cent against 31 per cent
for other EU countries. Theft of cars only dropped by 2 per cent across the
EU but by 27 per cent in England and Wales.

Drug trafficking offences were down by 5 per cent in the EU and fell by 10
per cent in England and Wales.

But the prison population in England and Wales was one of the highest rates
in Western Europe. There were 124 prisoners per 100,000 population in
England and Wales, which was the highest in the EU. The average was 85. The
figure for England and Wales is said to reflect longer sentences.

England and Wales had one of the lowest murder rates for 1998-2000 out of
39 countries at 1.50 murders per 100,000 of population, against an average
of 1.70.