For most crimes, a detection means that a suspected offender is issued with a charge or summons and faces prosecution in the Courts.

As with detections, the longer the gap between the measurement being taken and the end of the reference period, the more time there is to allow for investigations to conclude and for further detections, or in this case prosecutions, to be achieved. As a result, the share of detections classed as a charge or summons for each year tends to increase over time. This feature affects some crime types more than others. The effect of the time lag should be considered in respect of the time series.

The proportion of crime incidents reported in the years 2016 to 2022, which have a valid charge or summons linked to the incident, is shown in Table 4.1. This time series is provided, even though it is not provided for detections more broadly, on the basis that the way in which charges and summons are recorded did not change in 2018, as other detection indicators did.

Over time, just over one fifth of reported Sexual offence incidents lead to a charge or summons

• In general, just over a fifth of reported Sexual offence crimes led to a charge or summons between 2016 and 2020. The figures for the more recent years are currently lower at 16% for 2021 and 7% for 2022 but would be expected to increase with time.
• The share of Theft & Related offences that have led to a charge or summons was relatively stable between 2016 and 2019 before rising in 2020 and 2021. The increased shares in 2020 and 2021 reflect a drop of 31% in the number of crime incidents from 68,144 from 2019 to 46,791 in 2021, likely due to the restrictions arising from COVID-19.
• The share of Fraud, Deception & Related offences that resulted in a charge or summons was 7% for each of the years 2021 and 2022. This was much lower than the rate of 22% for 2020. See Figure 4.1 and Table 4.1. This was likely due to a more than doubling of reported crime incidents to 17,091 between 2020 and 2021 before falling back to 11,646 in 2022, which was still significantly higher than pre-2021 levels. Further information on these figures is available on PxStat table CJA01.