The UK is officially getting safer – no thanks to party politics

Falling violent and sexual crime statistics belie theories from left and right, including Chris Grayling's that smacking children is OK
Chris Grayling
'If Chris Grayling really wants to help rid our society of violent and serious crime, perhaps he should condemn all violence against children.' Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

The Office of National Statistics has published its detailed analysis of violent and sexual crime, and it may require the political left and the right to each bury one of their most treasured illusions.

Since the 1980s it has been an article of faith on the left that crime of all sorts rises during periods of economic hardship and unemployment, and falls during easier times. Some even argue that violence and crime inevitably rise under a Tory government. It has never really been true – crime rose during the Labour administrations and economic ups and downs of the 1960s and 70s, and began to fall significantly under John Major.

Analyses of the trends up to 2011-12 make for remarkable reading. Despite our economic woes, our society is continuing to become less violent and crime-stricken. According to the Crime Survey of England and Wales (the successor to the BCS) the number of violent incidents is now exactly half what it was in 1995, and overall the rates are more or less where they were in 1981. Homicides are at their lowest since 1989. Firearms offences have fallen for the eighth consecutive year. Domestic abuse is down 69% since the mid-90s.

The trends are mirrored in other crime statistics. Recent figures have shown significant falls in most crime rates including, perhaps most surprisingly, shoplifting and other thefts from businesses, down by 64% since 2002. We may be living through times of hardship and austerity, but we appear to be becoming a more peaceful and honest society all the time.

Most serious crime is committed by a relatively small proportion of the population, mostly male repeat offenders below the age of 30, and very often their offending will have begun in childhood. To understand these dramatic trends we need to look at a generation that was born in the period between about 1975 and 1990. Various theories have been offered to explain the phenomenon ranging from the availability of abortion to lead poisoning, and it is likely that multiple causes are interacting. Within that, I would suggest there is one factor that may be of utmost significance: the reason our young adults are today creating less violence and strife is that our young children are today living with less violence and strife.

Psychologists have known for decades that children who experience high levels of violence and aggression at first hand are significantly more likely to grow into violent adults. Simply witnessing family violence can have the effect, while experiencing it directly may be the single strongest predictor of future offending. The vast body of research into corporal punishment has inevitably thrown up some contradictory findings, but the professional consensus is clear: hitting or smacking children has numerous adverse effects, and the more frequent and severe the violence, the more severe the consequences. One meta-analysis examined 117 separate academic tests, of which 110 found negative consequences to spanking.

Recently neuroscientists have begun to delve into the issue. Imaging technology has shown how our lived experiences shape the development of our brains and while the research is young, it would seem likely that if a child is raised with an ever-present threat of violence, neural systems relating to aggression and violence will be stimulated and grow more responsive. As the typical childhood becomes less aggressive and violent, the typical brain may grow less disposed to aggression and violence.

From the 1970s onwards, childhood has been changing. Children face less (and less brutal) corporal punishment at home and none at all in schools where it was previously almost ubiquitous. There is less tolerance of violent bullying and playground fighting; the much-maligned social services have at least curbed some of the worst excesses of child abuse. Domestic violence is less accepted than it was and is probably far less common too, meaning children are less likely to witness it and carry it into their own adult relationships.

For decades the authoritarian right has warned that the removal of harsh physical punishment and the spread of children's rights would bring about a maelstrom of anti-social behaviour, crime and quite possibly the collapse of civilisation as we know it. If crime statistics require the left to ditch their economic illusion, there's an equal need to ditch the disciplinary illusion on the right. After decades of softening childhood, young people today are vastly better behaved than my generation.

I know some people will be unconvinced. Instances of violent crime remain a staple of most news reporting and underlying statistical trends make for dull headlines. Exceptional events such as a terrorist attack or the outbreak of rioting in August 2011 skew perceptions. In fact the Reading the Riots research suggested that those involved were disproportionately drawn from the most troubled backgrounds, the ones who have mostly missed out on the changing nature of childhood.

A glance back at the overall trends shows that violent crime doesn't only buck the pattern of economic policy, it also bucks the trends of social and penal policy. Home secretaries and justice secretaries have come and gone and their tinkering has mattered nary a jot. If the incumbent justice secretary, Chris Grayling, really wants to help rid our society of violent and serious crime, perhaps the most useful thing he could do would be to condemn outright all violence against children – ironically, the one step he refuses to take.