Crime on the Isle of Wight has fallen by 8% during the COVID pandemic but drugs offences have risen by a staggering 30%, the latest figures from the Isle of Wight’s Community Safety Partnership (CSP) reveal.
The impact of COVID is evident when looking at local crime rates between April 2020 and March 2021. With 3 lockdowns over the 12-month period, as well as the restrictive tier system, 679 fewer crimes were reported than in the previous year, although some sectors saw a rise. The CSP has said that lockdowns resulted in fewer opportunities for crimes to take place as people remained in their homes and businesses were closed.
Although crime fell by 7.8% on the Island overall, nationally there has been a 13.1% reduction. The Island’s crime rate is lower than the national average — at 64.5 per 1,000 on the Isle of Wight and 77.6 per 1,000 in the rest of England.
Of all recorded crimes on the Island, 5.3% are in the form of drug offences, with 486 reported incidents in 2020/21 — a 30% increase on the previous year. On the flip side, the areas that saw the greatest reductions were those relating to theft — with shoplifting down 58%, theft from a person down 45% and non-residential burglary down 41%.
The CSP has said social distancing and the closure of eateries, pubs and clubs led to a reduction in violence with and without injury, also showing a decrease in violence between strangers and acquaintances. Violence with injury crime was down 18%, with a reduction of 284 reported offences and 124 fewer reported violence without injury offences on the previous year.
Roads were also safer this year as road traffic injury collision data showed a ‘significant reduction’, with 214 records. Of those recorded road traffic incidents, up to February 2021, 70.6% were slight, 28% were serious and 1.4% were fatal.
Sexual offences were down 9%, with 428 reported offences last year; a reduction of 42 incidents in 2019/20.
The increase in anti-social behaviour (ASB) was shown in a peak time, in August, when there was an easing of lockdown restrictions. A total of 2,438 ASB incidents were recorded in 2020/21, an increase of 61 on the previous years.
There was an increase in stalking and harassment offences, partially due to a change in the way incidents are recorded, which saw a 25% rise and 280 more incidents than 2019/20.
Of the violence against people crimes, 35.8% were flagged as domestic violence, with over 1,900 recorded incidents — 100 more than last year.
‘Roads were safer’ That’s rather difficult to believe but of course ‘there’s statistics and there’s . . . . . ‘
On the flip side, the areas that saw the greatest reductions were those relating to theft — with shoplifting down 58%, theft from a person down 45%.
reality is that the crime levels have probably increased, but more don’t even bother reporting now, because the police can’t be bothered to investigate and arrest the crims – they are far too busy recording hate crimes.
Yeah. Crime appears to be down and drug offence’s are up. Maybe most of the criminal’s are stoned.
The main reason stealing from shops was down was because of less people out shopping due to lockdowns and fear of going out to shop unless you had to, making it harder to steal when under closer surveilance
Sadly nowdays most of the Island smells of Weed
This certainly is so in our area, despite so many of us reporting drug running going on by youths, nothing is ever done about it. Thus most of us have given up on the Police, who just turn a blind eye as more and more become users, including children.
We need a kind of Harry Brown character, ex military perhaps who is not apathetic about how crime has been allowed to flourish to become the norm here, – many would gladly lend him a hand too..
Yup, Ryde stinks of it. Personally I don’t smoke it but I think it’s time to legalise it. Then the legal version can be created that does not smell like two week old BO. It never smelt that strong in the 70’s. Have it so only pubs can sell it. Help to stop them going out of business.
Online crime reporting is so, deliberately so imo, difficult, hence many give up, just what the Police want. They look better for doing less work. A win win for them and a lose lose for us Islanders who pay more each year for an ever worsening place to bring up decent children.
the days of coppers getting stuck in and breaking down doors are almost over – nowadays they employ the snowflake pronoun monitors, that struggle to open a door with a key or do gooders that are painting the car with a rainbow instead of chasing down the thieves/muggers and dealers.
the real hardcore crims must be loving this situation – weak police, pathetic sentences, light fines – perfect conditions for a risk free life of crime.
Has anyone reading this tried to report a crime lately?
Crime is down because people cant be bothered to sit on the phone waiting for 101 to be answered or don`t want to report it on line.
It is my honest belief that Policing on the Island and Nationally has deteriorated massively since I worked for the Police many years ago, so much so that many members of the public have lost faith in the Police and justice system as a whole.
It’s better to take these figures with a very large pinch of salt, it’s like the population figures, we were told the population was 65 million back in the sixty’s…..there still saying its 65 million to this day….
When I first became aware of the size of the population, a long time ago, it was only 45 million!
Crime down 8%? Maybe, or maybe it’s just not getting reported. But what is obvious is that the number of serious offences with guns or other weapons is up massively. This used to be almost unheard of on the Island but just do a search on this site or any of the other local news sites and see how many times armed police were used in raids and how many crimes were reported where the offender has used a weapon. Either people living here have become more violent over the past 10 or 15 years or we’re importing a lot of undesirable people from the mainland.