§ Mrs. MayTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many recorded offences of criminal damage there were in(a) each police force area in each year since 1997 and (b) each crime disorder reduction partnership area in each year since their establishment. [43977]
§ Mr. DenhamRecorded crimes of criminal damage are not collected at Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership level.
758WThe requested figures for the criminal damage recorded crime offence group are given in the table. There was a change in counting rules for recorded crime on 1 April 1998, which was estimated to have increased the total number of criminal damage offences recorded over England and Wales as a whole by 5 per cent. Numbers of recorded crimes after this date are therefore not directly comparable with previous years.
Recorded crime——offences of criminal damage by police force area since 19971 Police force 1997 1998–992 1999–2000 2000–01 Avon and Somerset 20,396 20,605 20,519 22,479 Bedfordshire 8,025 7,893 8,048 7,892 Cambridgeshire 9,250 11,925 12,110 13,197 Cheshire 11,205 11,596 12,627 13,078 Cleveland 11,274 10,681 10,812 10,684 Cumbria 8,047 8,405 8,943 8,922 Derbyshire 13,387 14,316 15,207 14,997 Devon and Cornwall 15,232 17,722 18,490 18,284 Dorset 8,245 8,303 8,408 9,419 Durham 10,518 11,122 10,654 10,375 Essex3 18,845 18,834 21,766 24,673 Gloucestershire 6,158 6,570 7,990 9,087 Greater Manchester 68,100 67,052 75,201 77,154 Hampshire 26,429 25,100 28,125 28,714 Hertfordshire3 9,831 10,177 11,560 13,839 Humberside 20,177 21,486 20,739 20,910 Kent 24,047 23,049 24,806 27,947 Lancashire 26,767 21,360 22,776 25,445 Leicestershire 14,034 15,143 16,889 16,664 Lincolnshire 7,145 7,728 8,391 9,078 City of London 287 297 409 260 Merseyside 23,677 27,465 30,822 30,593 Metropolitan Police District3 140,516 136,870 151,590 144,231 Norfolk 9,782 10,393 10,978 11,481 Northamptonshire 11,595 11,771 11,736 11,448 Northumbria 35,314 31,634 30,436 29,775 North Yorkshire 8,537 8,372 8,617 9,167 Nottinghamshire 28,165 23,953 23,692 23,187 South Yorkshire 23,568 24,198 25,305 24,173 Staffordshire 16,940 15,668 18,442 21,655 Suffolk 7,835 7,898 9,547 10,150 Surrey3 6,557 7,576 8,602 12,318 Sussex 23,945 23,828 26,361 27,219 Thames Valley 25,584 26,006 28,630 29,719 Warwickshire 6,362 6,888 7,439 7,290 West Mercia 14,965 15,346 17,410 16,817 West Midlands 49,120 50,407 61,422 57,459 West Yorkshire 46,446 49,239 48,106 49,568 Wiltshire 5,722 6,644 7,151 7,452 Dyfed-Powys 4,497 4,497 4,417 4,572 Gwent 9,947 11,690 12,253 11,221 North Wales 11,238 9.652 10,102 12,182 South Wales 29,331 30,227 28,154 25,313 England and Wales 877,042 879,586 945,682 960,087 1 1997 is the calendar year, with the other years ending in March. 2 The number of crimes recorded in that financial year using the expanded offence coverage and revised counting rules which came into effect on 1 April 1998. 3 There was a boundary change on 1 April 2000 in which parts of the Metropolitan Police area were transferred to Essex, Hertfordshire and Surrey, so that these police force areas followed county boundaries thereafter.