Recorded Crime Q3 2023

The number of recorded incidents of Robbery, Extortion & Hijacking offences increased by 24% or 485 to 2,471 in the year to Q3 2023. Most of this increase was accounted for by incidents of Blackmail or Extortion and Robbery from the Person offences.

Theft & Related offences were up by 16% or 9,904 to 72,340 incidents over the same period. About four in every ten (42%) of the increased incidents were Theft from Shops.

There were also small increases in crime incidents relating to Damage to Property & the Environment (+3%), Weapons & Explosives offences (+2%) and Attempts/Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassments & Related offences (+1%).

By contrast, incidents of Fraud, Deception & Related were down by 27% or 4,010 to 10,629 incidents over the same period. This was due mostly to a fall in incidents of unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone.

Nearly all other crime categories fell over the year with the highest rates of decrease being for Kidnapping & Related offences (-15%) and Dangerous or Negligent Acts (-12%). Homicide & Related offences fell by 6% to 64 incidents and Sexual offences fell by 5% to 3,498. Controlled Drugs offences remained virtually unchanged at 17,449 incidents. See Figure 2.1 and Table 2.1.

Homicide and Sexual offences fall but Robbery offences up in Q3 2023 compared with Q3 2022

Table 2.2 compares the number of crime incidents by offence category between Q3 2022 and Q3 2023. For a number of crime categories, the upward or downward trend between both quarters is similar to the year to date changes in Table 2.1 above but there are some differences in the scale of change. 

For example,

• Homicide & Related offences incidents were down 57% between both quarters but down 6% over the year.
• Incidents of Sexual offences fell by 18% between quarters compared with a fall of 5% over the year.
• Incidents of Offences Against Government, Justice Procedures & Organisation of Crime incidents were down 22% between both quarters compared to an increase of 1% over the year.
• Theft & Related offences were up by 6% between both quarters compared to an increase of 16% over the year. See Figure 2.2, Table 2.1 and Table 2.2.

However, for some offence categories, the trend was in the opposite direction. The most notable example being Fraud, Deception & Related offences where the number of incidents increased by 9% between quarters but was down 27% over the year.

Largest changes have been in burglary and fraud crimes since 2019

Table 2.3 provides further breakdown by offence type of the total number of recorded crime incidents for the year to Q3 2023 compared with earlier years. Data for 2020 and 2021 are likely to have been impacted by public health restrictions in place at the time due to COVID-19.

The number of Burglary & Related offence crime incidents at 9,117 in the year to Q3 2023 was just under half (45%) of the 16,553 incidents recorded in the year to Q3 2019.

The impact of COVID-19 public health restrictions was very evident in the intervening period when the number of recorded incidents fell to 8,365 in 2021 before rising to 9,927 in 2022. See Figure 2.3 and Table 2.3.

The number of incidents of Fraud, Deception & Related offences in the year to Q3 2023 at 10,629 was up 36% on the 7,821 incidents in the year to Q3 2019. The number of recorded crime incidents for this category had been increasing steadily in the same periods in 2020 and 2021 before reaching a high of 14,639 in the year to Q3 2022.

For the other offence categories, the largest changes were in Offences against Government, Justice Procedures & Organisation of Crime (-19%), Controlled Drug offences (-16%) and Dangerous or Negligent Acts (-14%).