Crime levels are falling for most offences across the UK – but the public doesn’t necessarily feel safer. It’s a human trait to focus on frightening information in the news or on social media – but it could also mean that people are more fearful about crime than they need to be.

Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage claimed last month that “everyone knows” law and order in the UK is in a worse place than it was five or ten years ago. Farage was launching a new Reform policy document called Keeping Criminals Behind Bars.

More than eight in ten of the British public really do believe that crime has gone up in the past few years. But as a study I was recently involved in shows, this sense of increasing lawlessness is based on very faulty perceptions of trends in actual crime rates.

Eight in ten of the UK public think mobile phone thefts have increased since 2010 and around six in ten believe both vehicle-related thefts and burglary have increased. In fact, all are down by 50% or more over that time period.

These figures are based on the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which Farage has criticised as no longer fit for purpose. There are real challenges in accurately tracking crime over time, but the Office for Statistics Regulation recently backed the study as a robust source of data on crime trends.

In any case, it is clear from our study that overly........

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