Crime Statistics for England 2025 | Key Facts

Crime in England 2025

Understanding the landscape of criminal activity across England has become increasingly important for residents, businesses, and policymakers alike. The year 2025 presents a complex picture of crime trends, with certain offences showing encouraging decreases while others demonstrate concerning increases that demand attention. Data from both the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and police recorded crime statistics reveal significant shifts in the nature and frequency of criminal incidents affecting communities throughout the nation.

The most recent comprehensive statistics covering the year ending March 2025 indicate that England and Wales recorded approximately 9.4 million incidents of headline crime according to survey data, representing a notable 7% increase from the previous year. This uptick contrasts sharply with the longer-term downward trajectory observed over the past decade, signaling potential emerging challenges in public safety. While traditional property crimes like burglary continue their long-term decline, newer threat categories including fraud and cybercrime have surged dramatically, reshaping the criminal landscape and requiring evolved responses from law enforcement and citizens. The changing nature of crime, particularly the shift toward digital and economic offences, highlights the need for updated prevention strategies and public awareness initiatives across England.

Interesting Crime Stats & Facts in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics – Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending March 2025; Home Office – Hate Crime, England and Wales, Year Ending March 2025

The statistics presented above highlight the dramatic transformation of the criminal landscape in England during 2025. The most striking revelation centers on fraud, which has become the dominant crime category with 4.2 million incidents, accounting for nearly half of all recorded crime incidents. This represents the highest estimated number of fraud incidents since data collection began in the year ending March 2017. The 31% increase in fraud compared to the previous year demonstrates the escalating sophistication of criminal enterprises targeting vulnerable individuals through digital channels, banking scams, and consumer fraud schemes. Conversely, positive developments emerged in violent crime statistics, particularly with homicides dropping to 535 offences, marking a 6% decrease from the previous year and representing the lowest figure since the year ending March 2014. The homicide rate of 8.8 per one million people reflects improved community safety measures and effective policing strategies in addressing serious violent crime. Additionally, firearms offences experienced a substantial 21% decrease to 5,103 offences, largely attributed to a 30% reduction in incidents involving imitation firearms such as replica weapons and BB guns, demonstrating successful enforcement of weapons legislation across England.

Overall Crime Trends in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics – Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending March 2025

Fraud emerged as the dominant criminal threat facing England in 2025, with the Crime Survey for England and Wales documenting an alarming 4.2 million fraud incidents, representing a dramatic 31% increase from the 3.2 million incidents recorded in the previous year. This surge marks the highest estimated number of fraud incidents since systematic data collection commenced in the year ending March 2017, signaling an escalating crisis as criminals exploit digital vulnerabilities, social engineering techniques, and increasingly sophisticated scam operations. The prevalence rate climbed to 7.1% of adults experiencing fraud, up from 5.7% in the previous year, meaning that more than 1 in 14 adults in England fell victim to fraudulent schemes during this period, representing a profound threat to personal financial security across all demographic groups. The two primary fraud categories driving this increase were bank and credit account fraud, which surged 30% to approximately 2.4 million incidents, and consumer and retail fraud, which jumped 23% to around 1.1 million incidents.

Bank and credit account fraud encompasses unauthorized transactions using stolen payment card details, phishing attacks targeting online banking credentials, and sophisticated account takeover schemes where criminals gain full access to victims’ financial accounts. Consumer and retail fraud includes scenarios where goods or services paid for never materialized, were misrepresented at point of sale, or involved bogus callers and ticketing scams. Of the 4.2 million total fraud incidents, approximately 3.0 million involved actual financial loss to victims, though 2.1 million of these cases resulted in full reimbursement, typically through bank fraud protection schemes. Notably, only one in eight fraud offences were reported to police or Action Fraud, indicating massive underreporting and suggesting the true scale of attempted fraud may be substantially higher than recorded figures indicate.

Anti-Social Behaviour and Public Order in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics and Home Office – Year Ending March 2025

Anti-social behaviour and public order offences represented a significant component of recorded crime in England during 2025, particularly intersecting with hate crime incidents. Public order offences constituted 52% of all hate crimes recorded by police, making them the single most common hate crime category, followed by violence against the person offences at 41%. Together, these two categories accounted for over 9 in 10 (93%) of all hate crime offences, highlighting how prejudice-motivated crime frequently manifests through threatening behaviour, harassment, and public disturbances rather than physical violence or property crime. The distribution of hate crimes differs markedly from overall police recorded crime, where public order offences account for only 9% of all notifiable offences, demonstrating the particular association between public disorder and hate-motivated criminal behaviour.

A dramatic spike in racially and religiously aggravated offences occurred during August 2024, when police recorded 10,097 such offences, representing the highest monthly total ever recorded since systematic data collection began. This surge coincided with the Southport murders on 29 July and subsequent disorder and protests across several English towns and cities. At the police force area level, 27 of the 44 forces in England and Wales, including the British Transport Police, recorded their highest ever monthly levels of aggravated offences during August 2024, with all 44 forces recording higher numbers than the previous August. Changes to Home Office counting rules in May 2023 affecting conduct crimes led to a 42% decrease in malicious communications offences to 98,805 cases, though this was offset by increases in stalking offences (up 6% to 136,022) and harassment offences (up 7% to 305,037), suggesting police are focusing investigations on more serious interpersonal crimes rather than lower-level communication offences.

Violence and Assault Trends in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics – Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending March 2025; National Violence Surveillance Network

Violence and assault statistics for England in 2025 demonstrate sustained long-term improvements despite ongoing concerns about specific violent crime categories. The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated approximately 1.1 million incidents of violence with or without injury in the year ending March 2025, showing no statistically significant change compared to the previous year but representing dramatic reductions over longer timeframes. When compared to a decade earlier, violence incidents were 36% lower than the 1.7 million incidents recorded in the year ending March 2015, and an extraordinary 75% lower than the peak of 4.5 million incidents observed in the year ending December 1995. These substantial decreases reflect multiple factors including improved alcohol licensing controls, CCTV proliferation in town centers, enhanced emergency medical care, and cultural shifts in attitudes toward violence across England.

Police recorded crime data shows 520,071 violence with injury offences in the year ending March 2025, marking a 7% decrease from the previous year, while violence without injury offences remained stable at 817,525 cases. However, police recorded violence data is significantly affected by recording practice improvements since 2014, making trend interpretation complex, and changes in how conduct crimes are recorded may have influenced recent decreases. Complementary data from the National Violence Surveillance Network estimated that 145,271 people attended emergency units in England and Wales for treatment of violence-related injuries in the year ending December 2024, representing a 2.4% increase from the previous year but remaining 31% lower than levels observed in the year ending December 2014. This hospital data corroborates the CSEW trend showing long-term violence reductions, providing independent verification that serious physical violence requiring medical treatment has genuinely decreased across England over the past decade.

Crime Reporting and Detection in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics and Home Office – Year Ending March 2025

Crime reporting and detection rates across England in 2025 reveal significant variations depending on offence type and victim circumstances. Overall, 37% of crimes measured by the Crime Survey for England and Wales came to the attention of police, either through direct victim reporting or other means such as police witnessing incidents. However, this aggregate figure masks dramatic disparities across crime categories. Hate crimes demonstrated higher reporting rates with 44% coming to police attention, likely reflecting victims’ recognition of the seriousness of prejudice-motivated offences and targeted awareness campaigns encouraging reporting. Conversely, fraud offences showed alarming underreporting with only 1 in 8 (12.5%) incidents reported to police or Action Fraud, while computer misuse crimes had even lower reporting at approximately 1 in 25 (4%), suggesting most victims either don’t recognize they’ve been victimized, lack confidence in police response, or successfully resolve issues through other channels like banks or IT support.

Detection and prosecution outcomes present equally concerning patterns, with 8% of hate crime flagged offences resulting in charge or summons in the year ending March 2025, a slight improvement from 7% in the previous year but still representing a very low resolution rate. For racially or religiously aggravated offences specifically, the charge/summons rate reached 9%, reversing a long-term downward trend that saw rates as high as 30% in the year ending March 2015. At the time data was extracted, 91% of hate crime offences had been assigned an outcome, with 9% still under investigation, comparable to the 91% outcome assignment rate for non-hate crimes. Variations emerged across specific offence types, with 11% of hate crime flagged public order offences dealt with by charge or summons compared to 7% for non-hate crime public order offences, while hate crime flagged violence against the person offences had similar charge rates (6%) to their non-hate crime equivalents. These statistics underscore ongoing challenges in converting reported crimes into criminal justice outcomes, reflecting issues including evidential difficulties, victim reluctance to support prosecutions, and resource constraints affecting police investigation capacity across England.

Domestic abuse and sexual offences statistics reveal the devastating personal impact of crime affecting millions across England in 2025. The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated that 7.8% of adults aged 16 years and over experienced domestic abuse in the last year, equating to approximately 3.8 million people. This figure showed no statistically significant change from the previous year’s survey, though it reflects new measurement questions introduced to provide better estimates of domestic abuse prevalence. Police forces flagged 815,941 offences as domestic abuse-related, representing a 4% decrease from the previous year, with 634,912 violence against the person offences comprising the majority. The proportion of violence offences flagged as domestic abuse-related remained constant at 33%, though the decrease may partly reflect changes in recording practices for conduct crimes rather than genuine reductions in domestic violence incidents. Sexual offences data presents particularly concerning trends, with 1.9% of adults aged 16 and over (approximately 900,000 people) experiencing sexual assault in the year ending March 2025.

Police recorded 209,556 sexual offences, marking an 11% increase compared to the 188,627 offences in the previous year, continuing a pattern of rising reports that likely reflects both increased victim confidence in reporting and improved police recording practices. Rape offences specifically increased 6% to 71,667 cases, accounting for 34% of all recorded sexual offences. Additionally, 2.9% of adults (approximately 1.4 million people) experienced stalking, while 8.6% (around 4.2 million people) experienced some form of harassment, representing the most common crime-related experience. These figures underscore the widespread nature of interpersonal crimes and highlight the urgent need for continued investment in victim support services, prevention programs, and criminal justice responses to protect vulnerable individuals across England.

Hate Crime in England 2025

Data Source: Home Office – Hate Crime, England and Wales, Year Ending March 2025

Hate crime statistics for England in 2025 reveal continuing concerns about prejudice-motivated offences across multiple protected characteristics. Police forces across England and Wales recorded 137,550 hate crime offences in the year ending March 2025. Due to the Metropolitan Police Service changing its crime recording system in February 2024, which revealed previous over-counting issues, trend comparisons exclude MPS data. Excluding the MPS, forces recorded 115,990 hate crimes, representing a 2% increase from the previous year’s 113,166 offences. Race hate crimes remained the predominant category, accounting for 71% of all hate crimes with 82,490 offences, experiencing a 6% increase from the previous year. These offences encompass hostility based on ethnicity, nationality, or racial groups, including xenophobic targeting of migrants and specific ethnic communities across England.

Religious hate crimes increased 3% to 7,164 offences, reaching the highest annual total ever recorded for this category. Within religious hate crimes, there was a notable 19% rise in offences targeting Muslims, climbing from 2,690 to 3,199 offences. A clear spike occurred in August 2024 following the Southport murders and subsequent disorder across several English towns and cities. Conversely, hate crimes targeting Jewish people fell 18% to 1,715 offences (excluding MPS data, though caution is needed as MPS recorded 40% of such offences nationally). The remaining hate crime strands all showed decreases: sexual orientation hate crimes fell 2% to 18,702 offences, disability hate crimes dropped 8% to 10,224 offences, and transgender hate crimes decreased 11% to 3,809 offences. These reductions partly reflect changes to Home Office counting rules in 2023 affecting conduct crimes like malicious communications, which are often associated with hate crime recording, making year-on-year comparisons complex.

Fraud and Cybercrime in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics – Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending March 2025

Theft and robbery statistics for England in 2025 present a complex landscape with divergent trends across different categories. The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated 2.8 million theft incidents in the year ending March 2025, showing no statistically significant change from the previous year’s 2.7 million incidents. However, this overall stability masks significant variations in specific theft types, particularly the alarming surge in shoplifting offences, which police recorded at 530,643 cases, marking a dramatic 20% increase from the 444,022 offences in the previous year. This figure represents the highest level of shoplifting since current police recording practices began in the year ending March 2003, signaling unprecedented challenges for retailers across England who face increasingly brazen theft, often involving organized criminal networks systematically targeting stores for high-value goods that can be quickly resold.

Similarly concerning is the 15% increase in theft from the person, which rose to 151,220 offences, also reaching the highest level since the year ending March 2003. These crimes, encompassing pickpocketing, bag snatching, and mobile phone theft, particularly affect urban centers and transport hubs where large crowds provide opportunities for criminals. Conversely, other theft categories showed improvement, with vehicle-related offences decreasing 8% to 350,070 cases and burglary falling 8% to 245,284 offences, continuing longer-term downward trends attributed to improved home security systems, vehicle immobilizers, and community watch programs. Robbery offences overall decreased 3% to 78,804 cases, though this masks a troubling 50% surge in robbery of business property to 15,520 offences, offset by a welcome 10% reduction in robbery of personal property to 63,284 offences, suggesting criminals increasingly target commercial premises rather than individuals.

Domestic Abuse and Sexual Offences in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics – Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending March 2025

Firearms offences across England experienced a substantial and encouraging decrease during 2025, marking continued progress in controlling gun-related crime. Police forces recorded 5,103 firearms offences in the year ending March 2025, representing a remarkable 21% decrease from the 6,449 offences documented in the previous year. This reduction brings firearms crime to its lowest level since the year ending March 2015 when 4,911 offences were recorded, and represents a dramatic 54% decline from the peak of 11,088 offences observed in the year ending March 2006. These figures encompass various weapon types and include crimes where a firearm was fired, used as a blunt instrument, or employed as a threat, providing a comprehensive picture of gun-related criminal activity across England and Wales. The most significant contributor to the overall decline was the 30% reduction in imitation firearms offences, which dropped from 2,724 offences to 1,907 offences.

Imitation firearms, including replica weapons, BB guns, and soft air weapons, constituted 37% of all firearms offences in the year ending March 2025, though their prevalence has decreased substantially. Handguns remained the second most common weapon type, accounting for 33% of firearms offences with 1,684 incidents. The sustained long-term reduction in firearms offences reflects England’s stringent gun control legislation, effective border controls preventing weapon importation, and coordinated law enforcement efforts targeting illegal firearms trafficking networks. The continued downward trajectory suggests that despite isolated high-profile incidents, England maintains one of the lowest rates of gun crime among developed nations, with comprehensive regulatory frameworks successfully limiting criminal access to firearms.

Theft and Robbery in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics – Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending March 2025

Knife crime remained a persistent concern across England in 2025, though overall figures demonstrated modest improvement. Police recorded 53,047 knife-enabled crime offences during the year ending March 2025, representing a 1% decrease compared to the 53,685 offences documented in the previous year. These offences, defined as crimes where a knife or sharp instrument was used to injure a victim or employed as a threat, encompassed a range of serious criminal acts. The two dominant categories were assault with injury and assault with intent to cause serious harm, accounting for 43% of all knife-enabled crimes with 22,810 offences, and robbery offences, representing 42% with 22,280 offences. Together, these two categories comprised 85% of all knife-enabled crimes, highlighting how knife possession frequently escalates to serious violence or property crime.

Geographic distribution of knife crime reveals significant concentration in major metropolitan areas. The Metropolitan Police Service recorded 31% of all knife-enabled offences in England and Wales with 16,297 offences, experiencing a 9% increase compared to the previous year. The West Midlands Police documented 8% of national offences with 4,469 cases (a 15% decrease), while Greater Manchester Police recorded 6% with 3,398 offences (a 2% increase). Complementing police statistics, NHS hospital data from England and Wales showed 3,508 admissions for assault by a sharp object in the year ending March 2025, marking a 10% decrease from the previous year and 26% below the year ending March 2020 levels. Police also recorded 28,314 possession of article with blade or point offences, a 2% increase from 27,646 offences, though these figures are heavily influenced by police activity including stop-and-search operations rather than representing pure crime trends.

Firearms Offences in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics – Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending March 2025

Homicide statistics for England in 2025 present encouraging evidence that serious violent crime continues its gradual decline. Police forces across England and Wales recorded 535 homicide offences during the year ending March 2025, representing a 6% decrease from the 567 offences documented in the previous year. This reduction brings homicide levels to their lowest point since the year ending March 2014, when 533 offences were recorded, demonstrating sustained progress in preventing the most serious form of violent crime. The homicide rate of 8.8 per one million population reflects not only improved policing strategies but also community intervention programs and violence reduction initiatives that have become embedded across England’s major urban centers.

Particularly noteworthy is the substantial decline in knife-involved homicides, which fell dramatically by 23% from 265 offences to 204 offences. This reduction is especially significant given longstanding concerns about knife crime across England, particularly in metropolitan areas. Knives or sharp instruments were used in 40% of homicides in the year ending March 2025, down from 46% in the previous year, indicating that anti-knife crime campaigns and enhanced stop-and-search powers have yielded measurable results. When compared to levels from a decade earlier, the current homicide figure of 535 offences remains remarkably similar to the 539 offences recorded in the year ending March 2015, suggesting that despite various social and economic challenges over the past ten years, England has successfully maintained stability in preventing the most extreme manifestations of violence within communities.

Knife Crime Statistics in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics – Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending March 2025

The overall crime trends for England in 2025 reveal a nuanced picture that challenges simplistic narratives about public safety. The Crime Survey for England and Wales documented 9.4 million headline crime incidents in the year ending March 2025, representing a 7% increase that reverses several years of stability. This elevation primarily stems from the explosive growth in fraud incidents, which climbed to 4.2 million cases, marking a staggering 31% increase compared to the year ending March 2024. The fraud surge encompasses various categories, with bank and credit account fraud rising to approximately 2.4 million incidents (a 30% increase) and consumer and retail fraud reaching about 1.1 million incidents (a 23% increase). These figures underscore how criminal activity has increasingly migrated to digital and financial spheres where perpetrators exploit technological vulnerabilities and consumer trust.

Meanwhile, computer misuse offences demonstrated the opposite trajectory, decreasing substantially by 32% to approximately 692,000 incidents. This decline resulted primarily from a 36% reduction in unauthorized access to personal information, falling to 564,000 incidents. The contrasting trends between fraud and computer misuse suggest that while cybercriminals may be shifting tactics toward more profitable fraud schemes, improved cybersecurity measures and public awareness campaigns have successfully reduced certain types of digital intrusions. Traditional crime categories including violence with or without injury (remaining at 1.1 million incidents), theft offences (steady at 2.8 million incidents), and criminal damage (stable at 608,000 incidents) showed no statistically significant changes, indicating relative stability in these long-established crime types across England.

Homicide Statistics in England 2025

Data Source: Office for National Statistics – Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending March 2025

In the year ending March 2025, England recorded 535 homicide offences, marking a 6% decrease from the 567 offences reported the previous year. This equates to a homicide rate of 8.8 per million people, slightly lower than the 9.4 per million recorded in 2024. The decline reflects continued efforts by law enforcement and community initiatives aimed at preventing serious violent crime. Despite fluctuations in annual figures, the overall homicide rate in England remains relatively low by international standards, with levels in 2025 closely matching those observed a decade earlier in 2015.

Knife-related homicides accounted for 204 offences, representing 40% of all homicides, down from 265 offences (46%) the previous year—a notable 23% decrease. This reduction suggests some improvement in tackling knife crime, though it continues to be a major concern in urban areas, particularly among young male victims and offenders. While the overall number of homicides has remained stable over the past decade, shifts in weapon use, demographic patterns, and regional variations continue to shape the landscape of violent crime in England.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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