British police have failed to solve a solitary burglary in almost half of the neighbourhoods in England and Wales over the past three years, an analysis of policing data has found.
Despite a much-heralded and historic pledge signed by all 43 police constables in England and Wales in 2022 to have officers personally visit the scene of all home burglaries, there has been a decline in the overall solve rate and 48 per cent of all neighbourhoods have seen zero burglaries solved over the previous three years, the Daily Telegraph reports.
According to Home Office data, the charge rate for burglaries fell from 4.6 per cent in 2022 to 3.9 per cent in the year following the pledge, representing less than one in 25 burglaries resulting in charges.
The government figures showed that the police force in Hertfordshire was the worst performing, with just 2.2 per cent of reported burglaries resulting in charges, while even the best-performing force in South Wales only managed to bring charges in 9.6 per cent of cases.
Meanwhile, the overall proportion of neighbourhoods covering between 1,000 and 3,000 people where no single burglary was solved rose over the past three years from 46 per cent in 2021 to 48 per cent last year, representing 15,371 neighbourhoods out of the 31,860 in England and Wales, the broadsheet found.
Former Victims Commissioner Dame Vera Baird, a government position intended to “promote the interests of victims and witnesses, encourage good practice in their treatment”, said of the statistics: “Burglary can be very very upsetting and traumatising; it can make people afraid to go out in case it happens again and afraid to stay at home for the very same reason. Why are there no arrests, no prosecutions and no deterrence in almost half of all these cases?”.
The failures of police to solve burglaries come amid a wider trend of an inability or disinclination to devote the necessary resources to confront crimes, particularly theft, with retail bosses complaining last year that thieves have been effectively given a “licence to shoplift” as police fail to enforce the law in much of the country, resulting in retailers losing nearly £1 billion to shoplifting in the year leading up to last April.
Police forces across the country have in recent years come under heavy scrutiny for their allocation of resources, with many locales devoting valuable time and resources towards holding woke workshops and policing so-called hate speech online rather than on solving real-world crimes.
Previously, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire Donna Jones admitted that officers were wasting their time on supposedly offensive social media posts while the vast majority of burglaries were left unsolved.
A 2022 report from the Policy Exchange think tank written by former Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector David Spencer warned that by “policing tweets” rather than crimes on the street such as burglaries, robberies, and theft, British police forces risk losing the confidence of the public.
This sentiment was echoed following the report on the failures to solve burglaries by former government advisor and crime consultant Harvey Redgrave who said of the report: “It is of real concern that despite the high-profile commitment to attend the scene of every burglary, the police do not appear to be improving the rate at which burglaries are solved and offenders brought to justice.
“Public confidence in the police will not improve unless victims believe reporting crime will make a difference. These statistics also reinforce the need for a cross-government strategy to deal with the minority of highly prolific offenders who are responsible for a large proportion of burglaries and theft more widely.”
The National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for burglary Deputy Chief Constable Alex Franklin-Smith claimed that the 2022 pledge on attending burglary scenes was “only the first step” and that forces are trying to cooperate to find better practices to “enhance” investigations and preventions.