Confidence in police plummets to record low
The number of people who reported seeing officers regularly on the beat in their neighbourhood was also at its lowest level since records began, while confidence in the criminal justice system continued to decline.
The findings have been published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) who used data from its long-running annual crime survey of people aged 16 and over.
Some 51 per cent of respondents, who had been a victim of crime in the 12 months to March this year, said they were either very or fairly satisfied with how the police handled the matter.
That was down from 55 per cent in the previous year, and the lowest figure since this question was first asked in 1992.
Satisfaction rose steadily between 2006/07 and 2013/14 to a peak of 75 per cent, but has since been on a general downward trend.
The ONS found differences in victim satisfaction in how crimes were dealt with by crime type, ranging from 62 per cent for domestic burglary and 58 per cent for violence, to 41 per cent for bicycle theft and just 26 per cent for theft from the person.
Younger people were also less likely to be satisfied with the police response than the elderly.
The proportion of incidents where the victim was satisfied with how the police dealt with the matter was higher when the offender was charged (95 per cent) compared with when no action was taken (36 per cent), and where the victim was kept informed by the police (77 per cent) compared with where the victim was not kept informed well (19 per cent).
On the topic of police visibility, 11 per cent of respondents in the year to March reported seeing officers or community support officers on foot patrol in their local area once a week. This was down from 12 per cent in the previous year and is the lowest since this question was first asked in 2006/07, when it stood at 26 per cent.
The figure peaked at 39 per cent in both 2009/10 and 2010/11, since when it has been on a continuous downward trend.
People living in urban areas were more likely to report high police visibility (13 per cent) compared with rural areas (four per cent), while those aged 65 to 74 (four per cent) and 75 and over (seven per cent) were less likely to report this compared with other age groups.
Some 49 per cent of all respondents gave their local police a positive rating in 2024/25, unchanged on the previous 12 months but down from 62 per cent a decade earlier.
People from ethnic minorities were more likely to rate their local police positively than white people, while those who were aged 55 to 64 (44 per cent) and 65 to 74 (43 per cent) were less likely to provide a positive rating compared with other age groups.
When asked whether they were confident the criminal justice system as a whole was effective, 48 per cent of survey respondents said they had confidence, down from 50 per cent the previous year and the lowest figure since 2012/13.
Confidence rose from 38 per cent in 2008/09 to peak at 54 per cent in 2015/16, since when there has been a gradual decline.
People aged 16 to 24 were more likely to report being confident in the effectiveness of the criminal justice system (61 per cent) than all other age groups, while people born in the UK were less likely to be confident (43 per cent) than those born outside the country (65 per cent).
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