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International Crime Surveys

Volume 204: debated on Tuesday 25 February 1992

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To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the position of the United Kingdom in the figures produced for European countries in the international crime surveys for rape, robberies, assaults and murder.

The 1989 international crime survey, measuring crime in 1988, suggests that the robbery rate in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland was lower than the western European average. The same was true of assaults. The survey provides no reliable figures for rape, but for sexual assaults generally the position of the United Kingdom was again low. The results of the survey are published in "Experience of Crime across the World: Key Findings from the 1989 International Crime Survey'" which is in the Library.The survey cannot by its nature cover murder, but in 1988 rates of homicide, and attempted homicide, recorded by the police were lower in England and Wales than in 10 other of the EC countries. Rates in Northern Ireland and Scotland were higher than elsewhere except Luxembourg.