In the lead-up to the London mayoral elections the datablog has analysed figures on a series of London's key socioeconomic indicators.

This comprehensive analysis of crime statistics shows that while crime has fallen across the capital as a whole in the last decade there are a number of interesting sub-trends.

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The chart above shows this general downward trend in crime rates, where the number of recorded crimes per 1,000 of London's inhabitants has fallen by almost a third over the last nine years. In 2002/03 the figure stood at 151.6, but the most recently available figure - for 2010/11 - has dropped to 106.9.

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Trends in the rates of different crimes; however, have varied. While violence against the person has seen an overall drop from 25 instances per 1000 people in 2002/03 to 21.5 in 2010/11, the rate of drug offences has risen by 75% over the same period, from 4.7 to 8.3.

Instances of theft against a vehicle saw the most dramatic fall over the nine years studied, the most recent figure standing at just over half of what it was in 2002/3.

{"dataSourceUrl":"//docs.google.com/spreadsheet/tq?key=0AuZLaKQQs5xpdHl5RVcyNXVRMFoteENGTkV3TXVDdnc&transpose=1&headers=1&range=A1%3AL33&gid=23&pub=1","options":{"vAxes":[{"title":"Crimes per 1000 people","viewWindowMode":"pretty","viewWindow":{"max":null},"maxValue":null},{"viewWindowMode":"pretty","viewWindow":{}}],"title":"Crimes per 1000 people, by borough","curveType":"","booleanRole":"certainty","useFormatFromData":true,"height":750,"legendTextStyle":{"color":"#222","fontSize":"8"},"animation":{"duration":500},"width":460,"lineWidth":2,"hAxis":{"title":"Financial year","slantedTextAngle":30,"slantedText":true,"textStyle":{"color":"#222","fontSize":"10"}}},"state":{},"chartType":"LineChart","chartName":"Chart3"} Annual crime rates by borough, 2011/12. The trendline for the City of London has been excluded as it distorts the chart's appearance. Click here for the full size chart.

Exploring the data on a regional basis also yields interesting results. Three Boroughs - Camden, the City of London and Westminster have seen reductions of 40% or more in overall crime rate between 2000/01 and 2010/11.

By contrast, the crime rate in Tower Hamlets has increased by 5% over the same period, from 116.6 to 122.7 per 1000 people. Lewisham fared only marginally better, with the equivalent figure dropping by under 2%.

Overall crime rates rose for for ten boroughs over the most recently available year-on-year period - between the 2009/10 and 2010/11 financial years - with Hammersmith & Fulham witnessing the largest increase.

While the figures for Westminster may appear startlingly high, this can be explained in part by the difference between its day- and night-time populations. The borough has disproportionately high numbers of visitors during the day compared to its numbers of permanent residents, meaning crime rates measured by population are skewed upwards.

Data for the most recent financial year (see below) is missing figures for March 2012, but to-date Westminster has the highest crime rate by a large margin. The borough's figure for theft & handling offences dwarfs the corresponding statistic of any other borough for which data is available*.

* This particular set of figures is from the Metropolitan Police, and as a result does not include data for the City of London, where crime rates measured against population tend to be much higher than any other borough.

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