Public Appointments (Hansard, 11 March 2002)

§ Helen Jones

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people from Warrington, North he has appointed to non-departmental public bodies since 1997. [39446]

Recorded violent crimes in East Sussex, 1999–2000 and 2000–01
Crime and disorder reduction partnership (CDRP)	Violence against the person	Sexual offences	Robbery
	1999–2000	2000–01	1999–2000	2000–01	1999–2000	2000–01
Eastbourne	1,301	1,232	80	112	87	95
Hastings	1,755	1,881	130	110	134	251
Lewes	690	726	45	40	28	39
Rother	578	552	46	42	26	50
Wealden	780	743	42	37	31	23
East Sussex total¹	5,104	5,134	343	341	306	458
¹ Brighton and Hove is a unitary authority.

Information on violent crime recorded in the whole of the Sussex police force area for 1997 and the years ending March 2000 and 2001, the latest available, is as given.

Numbers of recorded violent crimes
Offence group	1997	1999–2000	2000–01
Violence against the person	6,114	16,924	17,235
Sexual offences	766	1,003	1,029
Robbery	681	1,020	1,241

There was a change in counting rules for recorded crime on 1 April 1998, which expanded the offences covered, and placed a greater emphasis on counting crimes in terms of numbers of victims. Owing to the change, over England and Wales as a whole, the numbers of offences of violence against the person, sexual offences and robbery went up by 118 per cent., 4 per cent., and 1 per cent. respectively. Numbers of recorded crimes after this date are therefore not directly comparable with previous years.

It should be noted that recorded violent crime is subject to changes in reporting and recording. The 2001 British Crime Survey found that, over England and Wales as a whole, reporting to the police of violent offences in total rose from 37 per cent. in 1997 to 45 per cent. in the 2000 calendar year.

Also, the British Crime Survey has shown that, in England and Wales as a whole, the number of violent crimes recorded in the survey decreased by 23 per cent. between the 1997 and 2000 calendar years, whereas violent crime recorded by the police increased by an estimated 14 per cent. Violent crime recorded by the police may therefore not necessarily be a reflection of real changes in the level of violent crime.

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