Don't go breaking my heart.... bike theft in Greater Manchester

Bike theft is an emotive subject - not just the cost and inconvenience from not having your bicyle to travel around on - but because for many people there is a huge sense of emotional loss when they discover that their bike has been stolen.
And an increasing number of people will be in this unhappy position. In June 2011, the Guardian reported that Halfords had submitted Freedom of Information Act applications to all the UK police forces asking for numbers of stolen bikes. The grand total for 2010 was 115,147 thefts - or as the police refer to it "Theft / unauthorised taking of pedal cycle". But this figure only refers to bicycles that have been stolen AND reported to the police.  According to the most recent British Crime Survey figures (or rather, the Crime Survey for England and Wales as it is now known) some 525,000 bicycles are being stolen each year. Now there are always differences in the methodologies for recording statistics - but one of the key differences is that the Crime Survey records people's actual experience of crime rather than recorded offences.

There will be many reasons why many people don't bother reporting a stolen bike - maybe because it is uninsured, not worth very much or claiming insurance would cost more in increased premiums - but whaever the reason(s) there would appear to be up to 5 times more bicycles being stolen than are being reported to the police.

So what is Greater Manchester like for bicycle thefts?  Road.cc reported the Halford figures and listed the "Top 10 police forces or bike thefts in 2010." When considering the absolute numbers of bikes stolen - Greater Manchester came in the top five police forces areas for bike thefts.

But allowing for population size, Greater Manchester comes in at 17th with 2.01 reported bicycle thefts per 1000 population. Although, to provide a more accurate figure - the statistics would also need to take into account the level of bike ownership for each area - but no-one seems to have done this yet.

Greater Manchester police do provide the data on the numbers of reported bicycle thefts in their Annual Reports. The latest figures available only go up to 2008-09 and show that the number of bicycles reported as being stolen was approximately 4600 for the last 4 years (2006-7 - 2008-9). See table below.

 

If Greater Manchester follows the national average in terms of the numbers of bicycles that are stolen but not reported - then there could be 20,000+ bikes being stolen each year.  Thats a lot of bicycles and a lot of heartache!

But more depressing is the decline in the detection rate that the GMP statistics show.  In 1999, Greater Manchester Police reported a detection rate of 6.3% by 2008-09 this had fallen to 3.5%. (See graph below).

And this is the detection rate for reported bike theft. With actual bike theft up to 5 times higher the overall detection rates are likely to be even lower (although to be fair to the police it would be difficult to detect a stolen bicycle if it has not been reported as stolen in the first place!).

While researching the bike theft figures for this post I came across a fascinating blog from the US (What happens to Stolen Bicycles?) which looks at bike theft from an economics viewpoint.


The blog argues that: "If you are going to take big criminal risk, you need to expect a large financial reward. Crimes that generate more reward than the probability weighted cost of getting caught create expected value for the criminal. Criminals try to find “free lunches” where they can generate revenue with little risk."

and illustrates this with a Risk Return Tradeoff of Crime graph (see image on the left). The blog author suggests that "Using this risk-return framework for crime, it begins to be clear why there is so much bike theft. For all practical purposes, stealing a bike is risk-free crime.  It turns out there is a near zero chance you will be caught stealing a bike (see here) and if you are, the consequences are minimal."  

The detection rates for stolen bikes in Greater Manchester would tend to support the argument that bike-theft is almost a risk-free crime.


Now, on 15th November 2012 we have an opportunity to elect a Police and Crime Commissioner for the Greater Manchester area and so we also have an opportunity to put cycle security and other cycle safety issues on the radar of our soon-to-be elected Commissioner.

Those nice people at Love Your Bike believe that there is an important role for the Police and Crime Commissioner in cycling promotion because speeding traffic, unsafe driving and cycle theft are key concerns that discourage people walking and cycling.  They wrote to all five PCC candidates to ask what the will on a range of issues to help make cycling safer and reduce bike theft.  The questions are listed below:

 1) Will you support the introduction of a default 20mph speed limit in residential areas?

2) Will you support stricter enforcement of high driving standards?


3)  What policies do you have to ensure that cycle theft and vandalism is taken seriously, to reduce the rate of theft and increase the number of cycles returned to their owners? 

4) What will you do to increase police presence on our streets in order to enforce traffic and anti-social behaviour laws?

5) Will you support the five principles outlined in our manifesto for cycling in Greater Manchester, ‘Getting Moving
Any responses will be available here.


Meanwhile, if you would like to raise any cycling related (or other) concerns with the PCC candidates, their email contact details are listed below (in alphabetical order).
 
Matt Gallagher (Liberal Democrat candidate): Mattgallagher2012@hotmail.co.uk

Tony Lloyd (Labour candidate): tony4gtrmcr@gmail.com

 

Roy Warren (Independent candidate): roywarrensnr@aol.com

Michael Winstanley (Conservative candidate):  michael@michaelwinstanley.co.uk

Steven Woolfe (UKIP candidate): steven.woolfe@ukip.org


Whoever, is elected, and whatever policies they introduce it would be hard not to agree with the Priceconomics blogger's conclusion - "Ultimately, that’s the point everyone seems to agree on - bike thieves are assholes.".