Chichester among lowest percentage of criminal cases being charged, data reveals

Between June 2022-2023, 2,441,749 crimes were reported to the police in cities the UK. Of these, just 155,644 resulted in a charge, a rate of just 6.37% according to data analysed by Lawhive.

They analysed police data from June 2022 to 2023 to uncover the areas that are toughest on crime, and inversely, the areas where crime goes ‘unpunished’.

The third-softest area on crime was Chichester, with 7691 reports of crime across the time period, of which just 4.49% resulted in a charge. The town ranks among the top 5 most dangerous across West Sussex’s 161 towns, villages and cities according to CrimeRate, and based on our data analysis ranked almost last when it came to punishing burglary (1.99%), criminal damage and arson (2.25%) and public order offences (3.3%). The town also ranked in the top 10 most lenient for charging violence and sexual offences (4.5%).

In Birmingham, 173,596 reports of crime were made over this period and just 4.14% resulted in a charge. The city saw some of the worst charge rates for drugs, possession of weapons and violence and sexual offences out of all of the areas analysed.

London saw 967,113 reports of crime over the same period of time, with a marginal improvement when it came to the charge rate (4.24%). Despite common fears, London ranked just outside of the top 10 toughest cities when it came to possession of weapons, with almost 1 in 2 reports being met with a charge (48%).

Lawhive can be found here: https://lawhive.co.uk/.