Shocking crime surge THE TRUTH: England, Wales stats now include hacking and fraud
Crime stats for England and Wales have shown a huge year-on-year increase. Don't panic, though: it's due to the inclusion of fraud and computer misuse offences for the first time.
In a report published this week, the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) reckoned there were 6.2 million reported incidents of crime in the 12 months to September 2016 in England and Wales, and that this figure is virtually unchanged from the previous year.
Crucially, the beancounters have now thrown fraud and hacking crimes into the mix. When the criteria for what's included in the stats were drawn up decades ago, "fraud was not considered a significant threat and the internet had yet to be invented," said the ONS's John Flatley.
Obviously, that's no longer the case. When you include 3.6 million cases of fraud and 2 million computer misuse offences, that 6.2 million figure jumps to 11.8 million. That's a 90 per cent surge in illegal activity.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/20/cybercrime_stats_uk/
