The most recent figures are from England and Wales, as Scottish figures for 2011 are collected separately and will not be available until September 2012.. By far the highest crime rate is in London; this should be no surprise as it's very often the capital of a country that has the most crime.

There are six main areas of crime: personal violence, robbery, burglary, vehicle theft, theft from a vehicle, and sexual offences. London is at the top for all these, although different boroughs show higher rates of different crimes - you can see the exact rates here.

However, according both police figures and the British Crime Survey - which uses interviews etc to get an idea of people's real experience of crime - most offences fell quite steadily over several years, with levels in 2011 at their lowest for years. Whether the recession will change that is something we don't know yet.