What is the process behind the survey and what does it do?

Every two years since 2012, we train University of Portsmouth students to carry out a face to face survey with approximately 1,000 residents to seek their views and their experience of crime and anti-social behaviour in the city. It is an important source of information as it is collected directly from residents and does not rely on crimes or incidents having to be reported to the police or any other agency.

The survey contributes to the picture of crime and anti-social behaviour in the city and helps to inform the priorities and the multi-agency planning processes used to address them.

2022 Community Safety Survey

Key Findings:

The overall level of people reporting crime (including online crime) to the survey has remained fairly stable since 2014.

The most common crimes reported to the survey were:

Threats/intimidation (reported by 7.2% of participants)
Phishing resulting in money or data being stolen (reported by 4.9% of participants)
Online fraud (reported by 4.8% of participants)

58% of crimes were reported, mostly to the police. However, most cybercrime was reported to banks or the relevant company/website.

There has been an increase in the proportion of participants who think knife crime is a problem in Portsmouth since 2020, but the proportion witnessing or experiencing knife crime was similar.

Levels of anti-social behaviour reported to the survey have remained fairly stable since 2014. The most commonly reported types were: