The line graphs illustrate the number of crimes divided by category, including car theft, house burgling, and street robbery in England and Wales from 1970 to 2005.
Overall, car theft accounted for the highest figure throughout the period, whereas street robbery remained the least common crime. While car theft and house burglary increased before declining towards the end of the period, street robbery rose gradually overall.
Initially, car theft dominated the figures with 0.40 million reported cases, which was double the figure for house burglary at 0.20 million. Moreover, there was only a small number of street robbery cases recorded in 1970, at approximately 0.05 million.
Over the period, the figure for car theft gradually increased to 1.00 million in 1990, peaking at 1.60 million in 1995 before falling moderately to 1.00 million in 2005. Similarly, the number of house burglaries climbed to 0.60 million in 1980, remaining unchanged in 1985 and rising to a peak of 0.70 million in 1990 and 1995. This was followed by a significant decline to 0.50 million in 2005. Regarding street robbery, this criminal activity remained stable at around 0.05 million until 1990 before witnessing a considerable rise to 0.20 million in 2000 and 2005.