At last weeks London Assembly Police & Crime Committee, we heard about some alarming increases in theft from the person during part of the Olympic period across London. This is commonly known as pickpocketing. You can see from the diagram above large swathes of London marked in red representing an increase of more than 10 per cent. The map shows the chnage in theft from the person in each borough comparing June-August 2011 with June-August 2012.
So while generally crime is down, there appears to be a growing trend in theft from the person when we compare figures with the previous year. Part of this period is duing the Olympics but the figures don’t apply to games time exclusively. We’ll have to wait until the results of the rest of the London 2012 Games period, to see if this trend is consistent. In some boroughs, the large percentage changes derive from a low base in the previous year, nonetheless, it’s a worrying indicator and one we should keep an eye on whilst crime across all the catagories appears to be down.