Almost one in 10 people in Milton Keynes have been a victim of crime over the past year, shock figures reveal

Statistics released by police reveal almost one in 10 people in MK have been victims of some sort of crime over the past year.

Between January 2022 and December 2022, 27,793 crimes were recorded in the city, an 11.9% rise from the previous year.

This brings the rate of crime to 96.84 per 1000 of our population.

The number of offences that resulted in formal action taken by police or courts is 4,375 – which means around five out every six crimes do not get a result.

Victim-based crimes, which include violent robberies, burglaries, sex offences and car thefts, are up by 15.6%. Sadly homicide showed the biggest increase – 50% – after six murders in the city last year.

Offences involving possession of weapons, such as knives, shot up by 45.1% during the year, but this could be explained by police increasing searches and clamping down as part of the Operation Deter initiative launched last July. This followed four fatal stabbings within a period of just 13 weeks in the city.

Robberies went up by 40.8% while burglaries rose by 41.4%. Throughout the year there were 974 burglaries of houses, businesses, shed and garages – an average of 2.6 per day.

Another steep rise came in vehicle crime, which includes theft of a vehicle and theft from vehicles. This rose by 50%, with 2,503 offences committed – an shocking average of almost seven per day.

Bicycle theft rose by 30.5% with 1,653 offences committed. This means more than four bikes are stolen each day in MK.

Arson and criminal damage crimes throughout MK increased by 43.5%

The most frequent crimes recorded by city police were domestic abuse incidents. There were 4,803 such incidents reported – a rate of just over 13 each day on average.

The good news is that sexual offences only rose by 3.9%, with rapes dropping by 1.3%.

And drug offences were down by 16.9%, with a total of 865, and public order offences decreased by 5.4%

Hate crime stayed static at 1,089 – but that is still almost three a day.

Racist and religious incidents went down but transphobic Incidents sored by 55.6%.

Last week the force’s Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber pledged to improve crimefighting to “keep our streets and the public safe” by increasing the policing portion of council tax.

The plans were backed by the Police and Crime Panel which approved setting the policing element of the council tax .

This works out at £256.28 for a Band D property, meaning an increase £1.25 a month.

“This year’s policing budget will ensure that crimefighting remains at the heart of our mission to keep the public safe. The focus will be on delivering proactive community policing focused on crime prevention to make every community even safer,” he said.

Mr Barber says the force is set to exceed the Home Office target for recruitment of .new police officers. As of December, 582 officers were recruited through the programme in Thames Valley force area.

It is not known how many of these are in Milton Keynes.