West Midlands neighbourhood crime falls by almost a quarter
Burglaries, robberies and vehicle crime are all down across the region, but shoplifting has driven a rise in business crime
West Midlands Police has made “significant progress” in cracking down on neighbourhood crime across the region.
New statistics show house burglaries, personal robberies, theft and vehicle crimes fell in 2025/26 compared with two years prior.
The data has been revealed in West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster’s annual report, which will be presented to the region’s Police and Crime Panel next week.
While there is good news in most areas, the report said business crime has seen an increase, mostly driven by a surge in shoplifting.
In the year ending March 2026, house burglaries had dropped to 10,308 from 14,155 in the same period two years prior.
Personal robberies went down from 7,426 in 2024 to 4,593 in 2026 while reported thefts were recorded at 2,535 this year compared with 3,537.
Vehicle crime also saw a reduction with 27,198 reports in March 2026 compared with 34,032 two years earlier.
West Midlands police’s bid to encourage more fraud and cyber crime reports was cited for a rise in those offences from 15,877 in 2024 to 17,362.
But business crime has seen an increase from 53,886 reports in 2024 to 55,271 reports this year.
In his annual report, Mr Foster said: “Significant progress was made in reducing neighbourhood crime during 2025/26, with 44,634 offences recorded, representing a 24.54 per cent reduction compared with the baseline year of 59,150.
Each Local Policing Area experienced reductions, with the largest decreases recorded in Coventry (39.2 per cent), Wolverhampton (34.5 per cent) and Solihull (26 per cent).
“Individual crime types also reduced substantially, including residential burglary (27.2 per cent), robbery (38.2 per cent), theft from the person (28.3 per cent) and vehicle crime (20.1 per cent).
“Business crime presented a more mixed picture. Overall business crime increased by 2.57 per cent, driven largely by a 30.2 per cent increase in shoplifting offences.
“However, positive outcomes for shoplifting more than doubled, increasing to 30 per cent, representing an improvement of 15.6 percentage points compared with the baseline year.
“Reports of fraud and cybercrime also increased by 9.35 per cent, reflecting ongoing work to encourage greater reporting of offences that remain significantly under reported nationally.”