Is Violent Crime Increasing or Decreasing? a New Methodology to Measure Repeat Attacks Making Visible the Significance of Gender and Domestic Relations

2015/12/31 by Sylvia Walby, Jude Towers, Brian Francis · 178 citations
Health Professions · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Crime Patterns and Interventions #Crime rate #Crime statistics #Criminology #Demographic economics #Econometrics #Economics #Homelessness and Social Issues #Intimate Partner and Family Violence #Mathematics #Point (geometry) #Psychology #Violent crime #Volatility (finance)

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/bjc/azv131

published in The British Journal of Criminology 56(6), 1203-1234 (Oxford University Press)

openalex publication_date 2015/12/31 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

The fall in the rate of violent crime has stopped. This is a finding of an investigation using the Crime Survey for England and Wales, 1994–2014, and an improved methodology to include the experiences of high-frequency victims. The cap on the number of crimes included has been removed. We prevent overall volatility from rising by using three-year moving averages and regression techniques that take account of all the data points rather than point to point analysis. The difference between our findings and official statistics is driven by violent crime committed against women and by domestic perpetrators. The timing of the turning point in the trajectory of violent crime corresponds with the economic crisis in 2008/09.

Citations

• Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach

Cited by

• Estimating the Reliability of Crime Data in Geographic Areas
• The perils of averaging crime data: Consequences of a common practice
• Machine learning for risk assessment in gender-based crime
• Alcohol and Violence: Isolating the Impact of the Off-Trade
• Who benefited most from the crime drop? Measuring stability and change in victimization inequality across different socio-demographic groups
• Invisible Victims: Exploring Gendered Trends in Youth Intimate Partner Homicide
• Improving the healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse in sexual health clinics: feasibility study of a training, support and referral intervention. [europepmc]
• Understanding the mechanisms behind the sexualized-body inversion hypothesis: The role of asymmetry and attention biases. [europepmc]
• Improving the healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse in primary care: protocol for a mixed method evaluation of the implementation of a complex intervention. [europepmc]
• PRimary care rEsponse to domestic violence and abuse in the COvid-19 panDEmic (PRECODE): protocol of a rapid mixed-methods study in the UK. [europepmc]
• Categories of Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse Among Young Women and Men: Latent Class Analysis of Psychological, Physical, and Sexual Victimization and Perpetration in a UK Birth Cohort. [europepmc]
• Changes in ambulance departures for assault calls during COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. [europepmc]
• Risk Factors Associated With Primary Care-Reported Domestic Violence for Women Involved in Family Law Care Proceedings: Data Linkage Observational Study. [europepmc]
• Psychosocial interventions for survivors of rape and sexual assault experienced during adulthood. [europepmc]
• Primary care system-level training and support programme for the secondary prevention of domestic violence and abuse: a cost-effectiveness feasibility model. [europepmc]
• Feasibility of a reconfigured domestic violence and abuse training and support intervention responding to affected women, men, children and young people through primary care. [europepmc]
• The Role of Intersectionality and Context in Measuring Gender-Based Violence in Universities and Research-Performing Organizations in Europe for the Development of Inclusive Structural Interventions. [europepmc]
• Examining the measurement of severity of intimate partner violence and its association to mental health outcomes: a narrative synthesis. [europepmc]
• Conflicting trends in violent crime measured by police recorded crime and the crime survey in England and Wales since 2010. [europepmc]
• Associations Between Violence and Psychological Distress Among Women Experiencing Homelessness: A Cross-Sectional Study. [europepmc]
• Crime opportunity theory: the state of the art. [europepmc]
• Psychosocial interventions for survivors of rape and sexual assault experienced during adulthood [europepmc]

Related

• Why Crime Rates Are Falling throughout the Western World
• Violent Crime in London: An Investigation using Geographically Weighted Regression
• Survey data show a global decline in intimate partner violence against women associated with rising living standards
• Countries with fewer males have more violent crime: marriage markets and mating aggression
• Increases In Disadvantage and Instability Are Associated With Rising Violence