Much fuss is made about financial inequality, but what about inequality of crime? It’s a question that has never been properly answered. Last year, The Spectator put out an appeal for help with social questions that weren’t being addressed by politicians or academia. One was whether the much-lauded fall in crime has been concentrated in richer neighbourhoods. Strangely, the Home Office seems never to have looked into it. It’s an area I know something about, having previously worked on profiling areas across the country based on their inhabitants’ wealth, health, and various other factors for a number of demographic studies. So The Spectator commissioned me to carry out the study.
The crime rate in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level since the 1980s. Surveyed crime is down by two-thirds on its peak in the mid 1990s, and, although there was a small increase in 2015, crime recorded by the police is down by a fifth over the last ten years, indicating an apparent increase in the quality of life. The
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