Number of motor vehicle theft offences in England and Wales 2002-2024

There were 129,159 motor vehicle thefts in England and Wales in 2023/24, compared with 130,119 in the previous reporting year. Despite recent increases in this type of offence, there were still far fewer vehicle thefts than there were in 2002/03 when there were almost 307,000. This was followed by a steep ten-year decline which saw vehicle thefts reduced to just 70,000 in 2013/14. Links with overall crimeThe sharp fall in motor vehicle thefts seen between 2002/03 and the mid-2010s, followed by a sudden increase recently tracks a pattern that can be observed in the overall crime figures for the United Kingdom In total, there were approximately 6.66 million crime offences in 2023/24, an increase of over 2.6 million offences when compared with 2013/14. Although this was a higher number of crimes than in the early 2000s, due to population increase, the crime rate for 2023/24 was 89.4, lower than in 2003/04, when the crime rate was 111.1 crimes per 1,000 people. Staff and funding cuts to blame?The recent uptick in overall crime has been sudden and severe enough to catch the attention of the British media. It has not gone unnoticed that this rise occurred following cuts to funding for the police which was then followed by a decline in officer numbers These cuts have since been reversed, and funding for the police has again started to increase, although in other areas of the justice system, such as legal aid, funding has remained at reduced levels, when compared with spending before the mid-2010s.

2023/24年度，英格兰和威尔士共发生129,159起机动车盗窃案，较前一年报告期的130,119起有所减少。尽管近年来此类犯罪有所上升，但机动车盗窃案的数量仍远低于2002/03年的近307,000起。此后，经历了长达十年的急剧下降，机动车盗窃案在2013/14年度减少至仅70,000起。与2002/03年至2010年代中期的机动车盗窃案急剧下降之后突然增加的态势相呼应，这一变化轨迹亦在英国整体犯罪数据中得以体现。2023/24年度，犯罪总数约为6,660万起，较2013/14年度增加了超过260万起。尽管犯罪数量高于20世纪初期，但由于人口增长，2023/24年度的犯罪率（89.4）低于2003/04年度的犯罪率（每千人111.1起）。近期整体犯罪率的突然上升引起了英国媒体的广泛关注。值得注意的是，这一增长发生在警方资金削减之后，随后是警力数量的下降。这些削减措施随后已被撤销，警方资金再次开始增加，尽管在司法体系的其他领域，如法律援助，资金仍维持在低于2010年代中期的水平。