A Sunday newspaper yesterday reported that police have failed to solve a single burglary in nearly half of all neighbourhoods in England and Wales in the past three years despite pledging to attend the scene of every domestic break-in to boost detection rates.
An analysis of police data, the article claims, shows that no burglaries were solved in 48 per cent of neighbourhoods – areas covering between 1,000 and 3,000 people – in the past three years.
In October 2022, all 43 police chiefs in England and Wales made the landmark promise to attend every break-in. But Home Office figures show that the proportion of burglaries resulting in a charge fell in the following year to 3.9 per cent (fewer than one in 25 reported burglaries) from 4.6 per cent in 2022. (Of course, attendance at the scene of the crime does not automatically result in anyone being charged, particularly if the evidence of the burglars’ identity is weak, too time-consuming to unearth or non-existent.)
The Metropolitan Police figures given for our area are better than in some other parts of the country, though not by much. The division into neighbourhoods here seems a little arbitrary and unclear, but that is what was printed in the newspaper:
| Neighbourhood | Total burglaries | Detection Rate |
| Loughborough Road | 123 | 1.6% |
| Camberwell South | 228 | 3.5% |
| Herne Hill East | 194 | 4.6% |
| Poets’ Corner & Brockwell Park | 286 | 2.1% |
| Acre Lane | 245 | 4.9% |
| Herne Hill & Dulwich Park | 178 | 5.1% |
| Brixton Central | 264 | 5.7% |
| West Dulwich | 160 | 6.9% |
Dame Vera Baird, the former victims’ commissioner, said the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s pledge to boost detection rates was “an empty gesture” in many parts of Britain.
“What these figures show is that in half of the neighbourhoods, burgling somebody’s home is a free hit. The criminal can walk away with the proceeds and never look back,” she said.
On Fawnbrake?
On the micro-local level, we haven’t heard of any actual burglaries on Fawnbrake Avenue in recent months.