The British Transport Police has released its annual report, with statistics showing what occurred in 2018.
With only 19 crimes reported for every million journeys made within the 1st April 2017 to 31st March 2018 period; the chances of you becoming a victim of crime on the railway stays pretty low.
However, during this period, the British Transport Police (BTP) recorded an increase of approximately 17% from 52,235 crimes in England, Scotland, and Wales in 2016 to 2017 to 61,159 in 2017 to 2018.
The figures below show statistics for notifiable offences (crimes reportable to the Home Office) for the BTP’s B (London and the South East), C (Pennines, Midlands, Wales, and the Western Region), and D (Scotland) Divisions.
|
Offence |
B Division | C Division | D Division | Total |
|
Violence against a person |
8,133 |
3,116 | 462 | 11,711 |
|
Sexual Offences |
1,953 |
462 | 57 | 2,472 |
|
Criminal Damage |
3,753 | 1,443 | 314 |
5,510 |
|
Line of Route Offences |
391 | 579 | 77 |
1,047 |
|
Theft of Passenger Property |
9,638 |
3,086 | 282 | 13,006 |
|
Motor Vehicle/Cycle |
6,373 |
2,588 | 179 |
9,140 |
|
Robbery |
457 | 86 | 10 | 553 |
|
Theft of Railway Property |
2,252 | 1,970 | 175 | 4,397 |
|
Pubic Order Offences |
7,139 | 3,144 | 30 | 10,313 |
|
Fraud Offences |
347 | 88 | 19 |
454 |
| Drug Related Offences |
856 |
662 | 96 |
1,614 |
|
Other Crimes |
524 |
328 | 90 |
942 |
| Total | 41,816 | 17,552 | 1,791 |
41,159 |
The BTP also released figures showing the service’s personnel statistics as of 31st March 2018.
|
|
Police Officers |
Police Staff (including PCSOs) |
|
2017 to 2018 |
3,079 |
1,797 |
| 2016 to 2017 | 2,886 |
1,877 |
They went into further detail, outlining numbers within each division:
|
|
Police Officers | Police Staff | PCSOs |
Special PCs |
|
A (Force Headquarters) |
487 | 1,143 | 0 |
10 |
|
B Division |
1,402 | 214 | 162 |
153 |
|
C Division |
969 | 125 | 109 |
131 |
|
D Division |
221 | 44 | 0 |
28 |
|
Total |
3,079 | 1,526 | 271 |
322 |
The British Transport Police and train operating companies would like to remind passengers to remain vigilant, and if you see anything suspicious or something that concerns you, to report it to a member of staff, or the British Transport Police via their anonymous text line (61016), or if there is an immediate danger to life dial 999.
What did the officials say?
Deputy Chief Constable Adrian Hanstock said:
“The last year has been a very challenging one for our officers, who responded to multiple terrorist attacks as well as intervening almost 2,000 times with vulnerable people on the network. Despite these challenges, it is reassuring to see that the chance of becoming a victim of crime the railway network remains incredibly low.
“In the past ten years, we have seen a significant rise in the number of passenger journeys on the English, Scottish and Welsh railways. With more people than ever travelling on the network, we fully expected to see a subsequent rise in crime in some areas.
“In the last ten years, passenger journeys have increased by 828 million (35%), which means that BTP policed more than 3.2 billion individual journeys during 2017/18. Likewise, railway stations are changing, becoming entertainment and shopping venues in their own right, as a consequence the environment we police is becoming more varied and vibrant.”
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