Older women are most likely to feel unsafe walking alone after dark but among the least likely to be attacked, according to a Guardian analysis of crime survey data.
Meanwhile, young men tend to express few fears about their safety, but experience more personal crime than any other group. The analysis comes as crime statistics show a 27% increase in reported offences involving violence against the person.
The survey asked almost 8,000 people aged 16 and over living in England and Wales how safe they felt walking alone after dark.
The findings were positive: three-quarters said they felt either very safe or fairly safe and just 8% said they felt very unsafe.
However, women were much more likely to report feeling unsafe than men, with two women in every five saying they felt somewhat unsafe. Almost one in eight women reported feeling very unsafe.
More than one in five women in the oldest age category (75+) said they felt very unsafe.
The wider ONS crime survey for the same period involved more than 33,300 people. It showed that older women experienced personal crime much less frequently than younger ones.
The general trend was that the older the person, the less likely they were to experience personal crimes, a broad category of infractions the majority of which take place in public spaces.
Women in the oldest age categories were among the least likely to be mugged or suffer common assault.
They were, however, at a higher risk than women in some younger age categories when it came to theft from the person, specifically stealth theft, which includes pickpocketing.
A recent Guardian callout showed that while many people feel safe after dark, fear stops some from venturing out.
“I rarely go out alone and never after dark,” a woman in her mid-50s said.
“Talking to friends, they all agree that travelling alone at night can be very frightening and is something we all try to avoid if possible.”
Another woman, also in her mid-50s, explained: “As a female [I] don’t feel as strong or able to defend myself as I think a man might. [I] worry about sexual violence most although as I get older I am becoming more concerned about mugging.”
A woman in her late 20s described being “tired of being hyper-aware, of keeping vigilant and not feeling safe until I’m inside, clutching my keys while knowing I probably couldn’t do much damage with them, choosing my way home by whichever way is busier (even if it’s longer), wearing shoes I know I could run in and taking my hair out of a ponytail so it’s not as easy to grab. It’s exhausting and I don’t see that it’ll ever end.”
Although fewer men said they felt unsafe while walking after dark, a similar pattern emerged when it came to age. Among under-55s a tiny proportion (2% or less) said they felt very unsafe after dark, rising to 5% and 7% in the oldest age categories.
Younger men expressed fewer fears but were more likely to experience crime.
The gap was most pronounced when it came to violent crimes: there were 72 incidents of common assault per 1,000 men in the 16-24 category in the year to March 2015 compared to just 1.6 in the oldest age category.
