Q1: Is crime rising in Britain?

Q2: Is crime rising in your area?

The answer to the first question seems obvious: that Britain is going to hell in a handcart is taken by many as a truism of modern life. With hoodies on the prowl, prisons packed to the gills and ASBOs becoming the Top Trumps cards of today’s youth, it seems self-evident that crime is rising.

But what about the second question? For the past 25 years the British Crime Survey has tried to record crime in Britain.

Rather than rely on government figures that leave out unreported crimes, it asks people directly about their experiences over the past year. It also asks them about their perception of crime levels.

Last year, it says, two thirds of us thought that crime was rising nationally. So far, so predictable. But despite this, fewer than half thought it was rising locally. It seems a significant proportion of us consider ourselves anomalies: personally safer, but not representative of the country as a whole. Which assessment is right?

Well, it turns out that people are actually spookily accurate when assessing crime in their personal life. The figures show that in the past quarter century Britons were most afraid of becoming a victim of crime in the mid1990s; 12 years on, that fear has dropped by more than a third. And actual crime? Well, it has done precisely the same thing.

Which leaves us pondering why we get it so wrong nationally. The British Crime Survey may be able to help here as well. According to its data, one of the most significant indicators of belief in huge national crime rises is – who would have thought? – whether or not you read a tabloid newspaper.

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