The chart illustrates the amount of car thefts, house burglings, and street robberies committed in England and Wales over a 35-year period
In general, both car thefts and house burglings experienced an upward trend while street robberies mostly stayed under control. Additionally, throughout the period car theft remains as the most notorious crime committed and contrasting this was street robbery which was the least widespread.
In 1970, car theft was the most common crime at 400 thousand cases, the runner up was house burgling at 200 thousand and street robbery occurred the least at less than 100 thousand occurances. Over the next 25 years, a surge in criminal activity occurred in car theft and house burgling, particularly vehicles thievery, more than quadrupling its cases to a peak of 1.6 million and more than tripling house burglary cases to 700 thousand. Additionally, Street robbers was kept under tight control and stayed the same in the aforementioned period.
From 1995 and onwards, the crimes in England and Wales witnessed an opposite trend as both car theft and house burglary instances waned in its figure by about 600 thousand cases for car thieves and around 200 thousand for house burglars. Meanwhile, street robbers became slightly more widespread increasing to 200 thousand cases. Despite this, the rankings for the crimes’ notoriety still didn’t change as motor vehicle thefts were still the most serious crime in the two countries which was then followed by house burglaries and then street robberies.