BBC News – UK Peace Index highlights rate of fall in violent crime.

For its inaugural index, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), which defined peace as “the absence of violence or fear of violence”, used Home Office data on crime, such as public disorder offences and weapons crime, and police officer numbers.

 

It found the violent crime rate was down by about one quarter – from 1,255 per 100,000 people in 2003, to 933 in 2012. This was a more rapid fall than the average decrease across western Europe for that period – although not more rapid than all other European countries, as was stated in earlier reports on the BBC News website.

 

These reductions came despite a 6% drop in the number of police officers per 100,000 people, it said…