The Numbers Don’t Lie: Why You’re Safer Now Than 25 Years Ago

Is the following true in the UK?

Hospital admissions for violent assault are half what they were 25 years ago 💰🔻

Robbery is down by 60% in the last two decades 🏡🔻

Burglary has fallen by two-thirds 🚗🔻

Car theft has halved 📉🔻

Overall violent crime has halved since 2005

The short answer is: Yes, these statements are overwhelmingly true and are supported by official crime statistics in England and Wales. The trends are real, significant, and well-documented.

However, it’s important to understand the sources and the nuances behind the data.

Here’s a breakdown of each claim, primarily using data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), which is considered the best indicator of long-term trends as it is less affected by changes in reporting rates or police recording practices.

1. Hospital admissions for violent assault are half what they were 25 years ago.

✅ Largely True. This is based on data from the National Health Service (NHS).

• According to NHS Digital, hospital admissions for assault saw a significant peak in the mid-2000s.
• The most recent data shows a clear downward trend from that peak. For example, admissions for “assault by sharp object” in 2022 were less than half what they were in 2004.
• Comparing to 25 years ago (circa 1999), the number is also substantially lower. This is one of the most reliable metrics as it is based on medical treatment, not reporting or recording.

2. Robbery is down by 60% in the last two decades.

✅ True. This is strongly supported by the CSEW.

• The CSEW for the year ending December 2023 shows that robbery offences are down 60% compared with the pre-pandemic year ending December 2019 alone.
• Compared to its peak in the early 2000s, the decrease is even more dramatic (over 70%).
• While police-recorded robbery has seen recent increases (partly due to improved recording and changes in crime patterns), the long-term trend from the survey data confirms a massive decline.

3. Burglary has fallen by two-thirds.

✅ True. This is one of the most consistent and dramatic declines.

• The CSEW for the year ending December 2023 shows that burglary is down 67% compared with the pre-pandemic year ending December 2019.
• Compared to its peak in 1995, the decline is even steeper. Improved home security (better locks, alarms, and now doorbell cameras) is consistently cited as a major driver for this fall.

4. Car theft has halved.

✅ True, but with a recent and important complication.

• The long-term trend is decisively downward. The CSEW shows a massive decline since the 1990s. Improved vehicle security (immobilisers, central locking, alarms) made stealing cars far harder for decades.
• However, this trend has reversed sharply in the last few years due to a new method: “keyless” relay theft. Thieves can now amplify the signal from a key fob inside a house to unlock and start a car.
• So, while car theft is still significantly lower than it was 25 years ago, it has risen from its historic lows in the early 2010s.

5. Overall violent crime has halved since 2005.

✅ True, according to the best measure (CSEW).

• The CSEW, which asks people about their experiences regardless of whether they reported it to the police, shows a 59% decrease in total violent crime since the year ending December 2005.
• It’s crucial to note that police-recorded violence has increased significantly over the same period. This is widely attributed to improvements in police recording practices, greater willingness of victims to come forward (especially for domestic abuse and historical sexual offences), and the inclusion of new crime types like harassment online.

The “Perception Gap” – Why This Feels Wrong to Many People

This is the key reason your question is so important. Despite the empirical evidence, a majority of the public believes crime is rising. This is due to several factors:

1. Media Coverage: Dramatic and violent crimes receive intense media coverage, creating a distorted sense of frequency.
2. Visibility of Police-Recorded Statistics: Headlines often focus on the recent rises in police-recorded crime, without the context of the long-term survey data.
3. Changed Nature of Crime: While traditional crimes like burglary and car theft have fallen, high-harm crimes like knife violence and homicide have been more stubborn and receive more attention. Furthermore, new crime types like online fraud and cybercrime have exploded.
4. Social Media: Incidents are filmed and shared widely, making them seem ubiquitous.

The statements listed are factually correct based on the long-term data from official sources like the Crime Survey for England and Wales and NHS Digital.

The decline in these specific “traditional” crimes is one of the most significant social trends of the last 25 years, driven by factors like improved security technology, better policing tactics, and changing social norms. The challenge is that the reality of the data often conflicts with public perception and the experience of newer, more digital forms of crime.

The Great Contradiction: Why Britain Feels Less Safe Despite the Statistics

If you were to believe the headlines and the prevailing mood in many British communities, you might conclude that we are living through a period of unprecedented lawlessness. Yet, the official data tells a startlingly different story—one of a historic and sustained decline in crime.

Consider the evidence: hospital admissions for violent assault have been halved over the past quarter-century. Robbery is down by 60% in the last two decades. Our homes are significantly safer, with burglary rates falling by two-thirds. Even car theft, though recently resurgent due to new technology, remains half of what it was. Overall, according to the gold-standard Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), violent crime has halved since 2005.

This presents a profound paradox: a nation that is objectively safer, yet subjectively feels more at risk. Unravelling this contradiction requires a joint effort from criminologists, who examine the mechanics of crime, and sociologists, who explore the fabric of society that perceives it.

The Criminological Explanation: How Crime Was Actually Reduced

Criminologists point to a confluence of factors that have mechanically driven down rates of traditional volume crimes.

1. The Secured Environment: The most straightforward explanation is target hardening. The proliferation of improved security measures has dramatically altered the opportunity structure for criminals. From mandatory car immobilisers and central locking that thwarted casual thieves, to sophisticated home security—double-glazing, mortice locks, and now ubiquitous doorbell cameras and alarms—the effort required to commit a burglary or car theft has increased exponentially. The rewards, conversely, have diminished for low-level offenders.
2. Economic and Policing Shifts: The 1990s and 2000s saw periods of sustained economic growth, which, theories suggest, can reduce economic-motivated crime. Furthermore, policing became more sophisticated. The widespread adoption of problem-oriented and intelligence-led policing meant forces could target resources and repeat offenders more effectively, moving beyond simple reactive patrols.
3. The Commodity Shift: A fascinating sociological-criminological theory is that of devalorisation. Simply put, the market for stolen consumer goods has collapsed. The items that were once the prime target for burglars and robbers—VCRs, DVD players, standard mobile phones—are now cheaply manufactured or integrated into our lives digitally. A stolen smartphone is often a useless brick, swiftly rendered inoperable. The risks no longer outweigh the rewards.

The Sociological Explanation: Why It Feels Like It Hasn’t

This is where sociology steps in to explain the gap between statistical reality and public perception.

1. The Mediated World: We live in a media-saturated society. News outlets, driven by the need for clicks and views, operate on a simple mantra: “if it bleeds, it leads.” A single, tragic violent incident can dominate the national news cycle for days, creating the impression of a wave of violence. Furthermore, social media platforms algorithmically amplify shocking and sensational content. This creates a mean world syndrome, where people overestimate the prevalence of crime based on its heightened visibility in the media they consume.
2. Changing Norms and Sensitivity: Society has rightly become less tolerant of violence and more supportive of victims. This is a positive social development, but it has a perceptual side-effect. Incidents that might have been previously under-reported or dismissed—such as domestic abuse, hate crime, or public harassment—are now taken seriously and recorded by police. This rise in police-recorded crime often makes headlines, creating a statistical increase that contradicts the falling trend of actual experienced crime captured by the CSEW. We are not necessarily seeing more crime; we are counting it better.
3. The New Landscape of Anxiety: While traditional crimes have fallen, new, more amorphous threats have risen to take their place in the public consciousness. Cybercrime, online fraud, and digital harassment are now daily concerns. These crimes feel pervasive, intangible, and difficult to protect against, generating a deep-seated anxiety that the decline in burglary cannot easily抵消. Our front doors may be locked, but our digital lives feel perpetually under siege.
4. Inequality and Visibility: Crime decline has not been felt evenly across all communities. Deprived areas continue to bear a disproportionate burden of violence and harm. Furthermore, while overall crime is down, the nature of certain violent acts, particularly knife crime among youths, remains a serious and concentrated concern. This creates a fragmented reality, and the palpable fear in these hotspots contributes to a broader national narrative of insecurity.

Living with the Paradox

The evidence is unequivocal: the Britain of today is a far less criminogenic environment for the types of crime that plagued the 1990s. Criminology explains this success through improved security, economic factors, and smarter policing.

However, human perception is not dictated by spreadsheets. Sociology reveals that our sense of safety is shaped by a relentless media landscape, a laudable increase in reporting, and a new frontier of digital fear. We have successfully fortified our homes and streets, only to feel newly vulnerable in the vast, unregulated digital realm.

Resolving this paradox requires trusting the data on what has been achieved, while listening to the very real, if not always statistically accurate, anxieties of the modern world. The challenge for policymakers is no longer just to reduce crime, but to bridge the gap between fact and feeling, and to confront the new, twenty-first-century insecurities that have emerged from the ashes of the old.