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Recorded incidents of Homicide offences increased by 31% or 17 in the year to Quarter 2 (Q2) while those involving Robbery, Extortion & Hijacking offences were up by 21% or 410 to 2,328 incidents.
Recorded crime incidents classed as Theft & Related offences increased by 25% to 71,284 in the year to Q2 2023 compared with the previous year. Theft from shops, which contributed to nearly half of this increase, was up by 27% over the year.
Crime incidents involving Fraud, Deception & Related offences were down 37% to 10,300 over the same period mostly due to a fall in incidents of unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone.
Victims of Attempts/Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassments & Related offences fell by 2% in the year to Q2 2023 when compared with Q2 2022. The number of male victims fell by 1% while the number of female victims fell by 3%.
Recorded Crime statistics continue to be categorised as Statistics Under Reservation.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (25 September 2023) released Recorded Crime Quarter 2 (Q2) 2023.
Commenting on the publication, Jim Dalton, Statistician in the Crime & Criminal Justice Section, said: “Recorded Crime statistics published today for April, May, and June (Q2) 2023 showed that homicide, robbery and theft crimes were up in the year to Q2 2023 compared with a year earlier while fraud crime was down.
Crime Trends in the Year to Q2 2023
Recorded incidents of Homicide & Related offences were up by 31% to 71 in the year to Q2 2023 compared with a year earlier. Over the same period, Theft & Related offence crimes were up by 25% to 71,284 incidents. Theft from shops which contributed to nearly half of this increase was up by 27% over the year.
Recorded crime incidents of Robbery, Extortion & Hijacking offences increased by 21% to 2,328 in the year to Q2 2023 compared to a year earlier. Robbery from the person and Blackmail & Extortion accounted for most of this increase.
Fraud crime however was down by 37% to 10,300 incidents and this was due mostly to a fall in in incidents of unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone.
The results were mixed for other offence categories of recorded crime. The largest rates of increase being Damage to Property & the Environment (+7% or +1,530), Controlled Drug offences (+6% or +971) and Offences against Government, Justice Procedures & Organisation of Crime (+6% or +772). In contrast, the highest rate of decrease were in Kidnapping & Related offences (-13% or -21), Dangerous or Negligent Acts (-11% or -957) and Burglary & Related offences (-8% or -819).
Analysis of Changing Crime Trends since 2019
Burglary and fraud crimes showed the largest rate of change between 2019 and 2023. The number of crime incidents classed as Burglary & Related offences fell by 46% to 9,004 in Q2 2023 from the 16,583 recorded in the year to Q2 2019. By contrast, recorded incidents of Fraud, Deception & Related offences increased by 41% from 7,304 in the year to Q2 2019 to 10,300 in the year to Q2 2023. In the intervening period, the number of incidents of this crime reached a high of 16,223 in the 12 months to Q2 2022. The rate of change for all other offence types were below 20%.
Victims of Assault Offences
Victims of Attempts/Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassments & Related offences during Q2 2023 fell by 2% from the corresponding period in 2022. The number of male victims was down by 1% while female victims decreased by 3%.
When you look at the profile of victims by age and sex, the picture was slightly mixed. The number of male victims of Assault who were under 18 years when the crime incident took place rose by 8% in Q2 2023 compared to 12 months earlier. There was also a rise of 13% in the number of male victims aged 60 years or more while there were decreases in the number of victims aged 18-29 years (-8%) and those aged 45-59 (-2%). There was little or no change in the number of victims aged 30-44 years.
Female victims under 18 years of age at the time of crime incident fell by 7%, as did the number of victims aged 18-29 years (-10%). There were increases in the number of female victims of Assault who were aged 60 years or more (+21%) and those aged 45-59 years (+4%). There was little or no change in the number of victims aged 30-44 years.
Impact of COVID-19 on data for 2020 and 2021
Data for 2020 and 2021 for some crime categories are likely to have been influenced by the public health restrictions imposed as a result of COVID-19.”