Impact of the Licensing Act 2003 on violent crime & criminal damage

The introduction of the Licensing Act 2003 in November 2005 allowed flexible opening hours for licensed premises. The Home Office has undertaken an assessment of the change in the timing and volume of violent offences from October 2004 onwards. Detailed information on theoccurrence of the offences by time of day was collected from 27 police forces in England and Wales. Of these, 23 forces have provided data up to March 2006.

Information was collected on selected offences in five groups7.

The data from the subset of forces shows a similar pattern in violent offences to that forEngland and Wales as a whole. The number of violent offences with injury in both datasets fell by 10 per cent between the quarters August – October 2005 and November 2005 – January 2006. There was a similar rise in the two datasets for violent offences without injury & criminal damage, although the proportion was higher for the subset of forces: a rise of 3.6% for the subset, compared with a rise of 1.2 per cent for all forces combined. This is due to the greater proportionate rise in two forces, Durham and South Yorkshire, following the amendments to the recording of common assault (see Section 5.4 Other offences against the person).

The total number of offences recorded in the subset has remained largely stable at around 80,000 offences per month since October 2004. The Figure below shows the proportion of violent offences & criminal damage occurring between 11pm and 2am by offence type overthe period October 2004 to March 2006. The trend for each offence group shows little overall change but seasonal variations do occur with peaks in December and in the summer months in particular. Since the introduction of the Act in November 2005, the proportions of offences for each type occurring between 11pm and 2am are consistent with the same months in the previous year.

The data show no indication of a rise in the overall level of offences or a shift in the
timing of offences as a result of the change in the opening hours of licensed premises.
More detailed results will be published in due course.

7Five offence groups: more serious violence against the person (offence codes 1, 2, 4.1, 5); other offences with injury (8A, 8D); other offences without injury (excluding harassment) (104, 105A, 105B); harassment (8C, 8E); criminal damage (56, 58A-58H). These offences have been combined into two groups: ‘violent offences with injury’ (groups 1 and 2), and ‘violent offences with no injury & criminal damage’ (groups 3-5). Figures are also presented for the ‘total subset offences’ (groups 1-5).