Crime In Southampton Has Actually Fallen

Annual crime figures released previous to Saturday’s shooting in St. Mary’s show a 16 per cent drop in crime.

With such sensational violent crimes hitting the headlines and Southampton having a higher than national average crime rate, you would be forgiven for doubting the success of Operation Fortress – Hampshire Constabulary’s war on violent and drug related crime.

However, in the year March 31, 2012 to March 31, 2013, recorded crimes fell from 26,165 to 21,929, with serious crime down by 22.71 per cent and assaults with less serious injury down by 18.83 per cent. The biggest fall was in non-dwelling burglary, with a 24.62 per cent reduction.

After speaking to some Portswood student residents about how safe they feel in Southampton, it appears crimes with the highest level of concern are burglary, personal theft and rape. And Southampton’s crime rate is generally viewed as “quite high”. I only need to point out that it seems to be common knowledge that the phrase “the Common at night” is synonymous with ‘rape’.

After the moral panic of serial rapists striking Southampton students, my friend is worried about being raped or mugged when walking alone in Portswood at night, despite being well-built and over 6 foot 5. While another Portswood dweller said “There hasn’t been as much crime as I expected, especially in Portswood. I haven’t personally experienced any crime, but I have friends who have been burgled.”

Does Portswood get a bad rap?

However, crime figures for serious acquisitive crime do portray a somewhat reassuring image, with a 17.82 per cent reduction from 3508 to 3473. This category includes theft of motor vehicles, which is down 21.79 per cent, robbery, down 20.85 per cent, and house burglary, which has reduced 17.60 per cent from 1227 offences to 1011. Police.uk statistics for Southampton crime rates between April 2012 and February 2013 also convey relatively low burglary figures, with it comprising only 4.4 per cent of crime, and other theft 17.2 per cent.

Southampton’s main issue is anti-social behaviour, which shadows other crime categories by representing 42.8 per cent of crime. Yet anti-social behaviour usually does top crime rates, especially in cities and student areas.  Even so, anti-social behaviour rates also fell by 14.01 per cent, with offences declining from 17, 839 to 15,339.

Of the overall crime reduction, Western Area Chief Superintendent David Thomas said;
“The latest crime figures for Southampton are very encouraging and reflect some outstanding work by all members of our Community Safety Partnership. There has been a dramatic drop in the number of victims in the city, and we will be working hard to build on this success.”

Despite this positive portrayal of crime statistics, the validity of them is questionable, as they do not represent the thousands of crimes that go unreported each year. It is also interesting that the total solved crime rate has remained the same since 2011/2012 at just 31 per cent and 71 per cent of Southampton crimes result in no further action or remain under investigation. This questions the true efficiency of the Constabulary’s crime prevention schemes.