§ (2) how many incidents of robbery there were in (a) Lancashire, (b) the north-west of England and (c) Wales in the last 12 months for which figures are available. [77638]
§ Mr. DenhamThe requested details in respect of crimes recorded by the police in the year ending March 2002 have already been published in table 6.06 of the Home Office Statistical Bulletin "Crime in England and Wales 2001–02", which was published in July this year, and is available in the Library. The table also gives rates for overall violent crime obtained from the British Crime Survey, which records people's actual experiences of crime.
117WRecorded crime figures may have been affected in comparison to the previous year as a result of changes to police recording practices. Some of the forces in Wales and the North West, including Lancashire, implemented the principles of the National Crime Recording Standard in advance of its national introduction in April 2002. This early implementation by these and other police forces had the effect of uplifting the number of offences of violence against the person in England and Wales as a whole in 2001–02 by an estimated 13 per cent.