Recession link to burglary rate rise ruled out

Crime rates in Barnsley and Rotherham have risen in recent months owing to a spate of burglaries in the district despite the number of offences continuing to fall in neighbouring Sheffield and Doncaster.

The Police Federation has blamed the rise on a shortage of officers caused by austerity measures, while Barnsley MP Dan Jarvis said a rise in acquisitive crime could be linked to “people become increasingly desperate”.

But South Yorkshire Police Chief Constable David Crompton has rejected the recession as a cause of the increase, saying a more likely explanation was “one or two people who were hell-bent on committing crime”.

Recent figures show that burglary rates have gone up by 36.2 per cent in Rotherham and 7.1 per cent in Barnsley since the start of the financial year, while in Doncaster and Sheffield levels have dropped by 24.8 per cent and 8.3 per cent respectively.

Mr Crompton said: “There was a rise at the beginning of the year, around April and May, in some acquisitive types of crime in Rotherham and Barnsley. In fairness, people have been working really hard to get on top of that and they are doing.

“It doesn’t mean that the crime rates have settled back to the point where they are quite the same as Doncaster and Sheffield, where they have had better performance. I think more than likely we started off the year in Barnsley and Rotherham with one or two people who were hell-bent on committing crime and we have now got those arrested and got them back into the system and things are settling back down to the more expected levels.

“I would hesitate to lay this at the door of ‘the recession has hit harder in some parts of the county than others’.”

A scheme known as Optimal Forager has been extended from Doncaster into Sheffield, Barnsley and Rotherham with the aim of reducing burglaries at domestic properties in the county. As part of the project, the force analyses recent crime trends to work out where and when burglaries most often occur, so high visibility patrols can be in place at the time and location where criminals are likely to strike.

When burglaries or attempted burglaries do occur, four Police Community Support Officers visit the victim within 24 hours.

Recent figures revealed that crime has fallen by seven per cent in South Yorkshire during the last financial year, though the overall crime rate is still higher than in other similar parts of the country.

Mr Crompton said: “The recession as a whole has perhaps hit harder in South Yorkshire than in some parts of the country, I definitely support that as a view.

“You only have to look at the commercial and manufacturing base of the area, and even though people are working hard, I think you could compare South Yorkshire with some other areas and see that some indices around deprivation and wages show the economy as a whole is more depressed here than other areas.

“There is another side of the coin, you see on the whole a bit less violence in town centres.

“People on the whole don’t get out for as long or for as often or spend as much, there is a slightly depressive effect and that works its way through to some of our violent crime statistics.”