Trends in satisfaction, trust and confidence over the past 20 years.
The charts below present the trends in satisfaction, trust and confidence over the past 20 years, as measured by the Crime Survey of England and Wales. The Crime Survey is the best source of trend data on public perceptions of the police at a national level. Data on public perceptions was not gathered in 2020/21 and 2021/22 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Crime Survey of England and Wales
The Crime Survey was first carried out in 1982 and became continuous from 2001/02. It is based on a large, random sample of the public aged 16 years and over. Its results are nationally representative and have a high degree of accuracy. For example, people from around 75,000 households were selected at random to take part in the survey last year. Trends in most public perceptions are not available for individual police forces. This is because only a sub-sample of people who respond to the survey are asked about policing.
Victim satisfaction
The Crime Survey routinely asks about the perceptions of respondents who were victims of crime in the previous 12 months and reported their experiences to the police. Results were last reported In 2023/24, 55% said they were ‘fairly satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’, overall, with how the police handled the matter. Victim satisfaction was the lowest it had been for 20 years and was 20 percentage points lower than in 2013/14.
Trust in police fairness
Levels of public trust in the fairness of the police remained virtually unchanged over a 15-year period up until 2019/20. In some years during this period, close to 90% of people felt that the police in their local areas would treat them with respect. However, the three measures of trust in police fairness all declined sharply in the four years prior to 2023/24, with general trustworthiness dropping by ten percentage points.
Satisfaction with neighbourhood policing
The Crime Survey asks people a series of questions about neighbourhood policing in their local areas. Trust in community engagement and problem-solving show similar trends. Both increased gradually between 2005/06 and 2013/14, remained relatively stable for the following four years, and then started to decline from 2017/18.
Perceptions of foot patrol followed a similar upward trend initially but has been in continuous decline since 2009/10. The proportion of people who said they saw the police on foot at least once a week more than halved, decreasing by 27 percentage points between 2009/10 and 2022/23.
Public confidence
The Crime Survey includes two questions that ask people to provide an overall assessment of policing in the local area. The trends in both measures mirror those for trust in neighbourhood policing. Both increased steadily until 2011/12, with the proportion of people who agreed that the police in the local area do a ‘good job’ or an ‘excellent job’ going up by 15 percentage points to 62%. Trends remained flat or increased only marginally until 2017/18, after which they started to decline. In 2023/24, 49% of people thought the police in their local areas do a ‘good job’ or an ‘excellent job’.
