Commenting on the Annual Crime Statistics, Ian Johnston, ACPO lead on Crime and Chief Constable of British Transport Police, said:

“The police service nationally works to protect the public, drive down crime and improve confidence and security across neighbourhoods. This set of statistics, across both the British Crime Survey (BCS) and police recorded crime, show those efforts are delivering falling crime and that this drop has been sustained over a number of years.

“Those are major achievements, delivered through the unswerving commitment of those working across the police service in partnership with neighbourhoods and local agencies. BCS statistics show an overall decrease in crime of 10% over the past year while police recorded crime reveals a decrease of 9%.

“ACPO recognises the challenge of translating these achievements into public confidence and reducing people’s fear of crime. The policing green paper published today sets out proposals to tackle some of those issues, including more provision of local information to neighbourhoods about crime and the policing response to it. These are measures which ACPO has called for and we look forward to studying them in detail.

“Police recorded crime shows a decrease in violent crime, sexual offences, and robbery. While serious violent crime continues to fall, within that positive trend we have identified a particular issue in some neighbourhoods where young people are involved in violence. This set of statistics also contains data on some offences involving knives, for the first time.

“ACPO is leading work across the police service nationally to tackle knife crime, and we will bring the full weight of the law down on those who carry a knife in public without lawful reason. Earlier this week the Home Secretary announced that ACPO’s lead for knife crime DAC Alf Hitchcock would head up a new Knife Crime Programme. DAC Hitchcock will be working with identified hotspot areas most affected by violent knife crime.

“Where such crime occurs it can have tragic consequences on individuals, families and neighbourhoods. This is simply unacceptable. With government, parents and local agencies we are putting resources towards wider preventative initiatives in order to tackle such offending at its source.

“Drug-related crime is also a threat to communities. Enforcement approaches combined with effective drug treatment and education provision are having a major impact in reducing crime. Recorded drug offences for October to December 2007 increased by 20% compared with the same period in 2006. Recent increases in drug offences are largely associated with increased police use of powers to issue cannabis warnings.”