One in eight people in Birmingham will witness or be a victim of crime, shock new data has shown. The city is now ranked the most dangerous place to live in the West Midlands, with 138,610 crimes reported in a year.
Wolverhampton follows in second, with 29,412 crimes, and Coventry takes third place on Midland's list of shame. Lichfield, however, is one of the safest, with just 5,614 crimes reported during the same period.
The figures come as more than five million non-fraud incidents were recorded by the 43 domestic police forces in England and Wales during that time. Predictably, the Met Police in London had the largest caseload, with 944,000 million crime reports, followed by West Midlands Police (321,000), and West Yorkshire (278,000).
Each police force area is split into smaller community safety partnership areas, which broadly match local authority areas. Crime rates - the number of crimes in each area for every 1,000 people living there - allow for a fairer comparison of the threats to law and order in places with widely different population sizes.
It comes as the latest Crime Survey of England and Wales is published. Based on face-to-face interviews, this annual poll seeks to measure the amount and impact of crime:
Birmingham
Rank: 22nd
Total crime (excluding fraud): 138,610 Crime rate: 119.7 per 1,000 people
Wolverhampton
Rank: 41st
Total crime (excluding fraud): 29,412 Crime rate: 109.9 per 1,000 people. That's the equivalent of one in every 9 people experiencing a crime.
Coventry
Rank: 60th
Total crime (excluding fraud): 36,576 Crime rate: 102.9 per 1,000 people. That's the equivalent of one in every 10 people experiencing a crime.
Walsall
Rank: 67th
Total crime (excluding fraud): 28,909 Crime rate: 101.0 per 1,000 people. That's the equivalent of one in every 10 people experiencing a crime.
Solihull
Rank: 124th
Total crime (excluding fraud): 18,046 Crime rate: 82.9 per 1,000 people. That's the equivalent of one in every 12 people experiencing a crime.
Dudley
Rank: 138th
Total crime (excluding fraud): 25,489 Crime rate: 78.4 per 1,000 people. That's the equivalent of one in every 13 people experiencing a crime.
Tamworth
Rank: 172nd
Total crime (excluding fraud): 5,614 Crime rate: 70.5 per 1,000 people. That's the equivalent of one in every 14 people experiencing a crime.
North Worcestershire
Rank: 201st
Total crime (excluding fraud): 19,022 Crime rate: 65.7 per 1,000 people. That's the equivalent of one in every 15 people experiencing a crime.
Police recorded crime figures show that while homicides fell by 4%, offences involving knives increased by 4%, and firearms by 19%. There was also a 4% rise in robbery and a 23% increase in shoplifting.