THE percentage of crimes in Reading has increased by 11 per cent in the last year.

In a data set released by Thames Valley Police, the number of crimes in Reading from 2022 to 2023 were 19,173. This is up from 17,203 crimes from 2021 to 2022 and 13,346 crimes from 2020 to 2021.

The number of 'victim based crimes', including homicide, violence with and without injury, harassment, sexual offences and more, has increased by 15.9 per cent from 13,723 to 15,900.

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The largest increase in victim based crime was ‘violence against the person’ which was a 7.1 per cent increase from 6,287 cases to 6,735 cases.

Violence without injury was the second biggest increase at 6.4 per cent with 2,809 cases up from 2,621.

There was one homicide in the last recorded year which is a decrease of -87.5 per cent from the eight in the previous year and the three recorded from 2020 to 2021.

Sexual offences also increased by 1.5 per cent with 629 cases up from 620. A total of 229 of those cases were incidents.

Robbery offences increased by 40 per cent from 140 cases to 196 cases including the robbery of business properties and personal properties.

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Burglary offences had a larger increase at 41.2 per cent with the largest number of cases falling under ‘business and community burglary’ with 411 cases up from 196 cases.

There were zero cases of ‘dwelling burglaries’ and ‘non-dwelling burglaries’.

Vehicle crime increase by 16.1 per cent with 1,275 cases up from 1,098. The largest offence under this category was theft from a vehicle with 711 cases up from 638 the previous year.

Theft from the person increased by 32.4 per cent with 441 cases up from 333 cases.

Cases of arson and criminal damage increase by 10.8 per cent with 1,630 cases overall up from 1, 471. There were 98 incidents of arson last year up from 58.

Hate crime also increased at 4.3 per cent in the last year from 745 cases to 777. Hate crimes can include racially or religiously aggravated crime, homophobic incidents and disability incidents.

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However there was a decrease in some crime categories including ‘crimes against society’ which include the trafficking and possession of drugs, possession of weapons, and public order offences.

There was a -6 per cent decrease with 527 cases down from 708 the previous year.

For drug offences there was 145 cases down from 222.