The data cover criminal offenses recorded by the 43 police agencies in England and Wales and offenders handled by formal police cautions or criminal court proceedings. The police recorded 5.1 million notifiable offenses in 1995, a decline of 3 percent from 1994 and the third consecutive annual decline. Property crimes accounted for 93 percent of the total. Vehicle crime declined by 5 percent, theft by 4 percent, and burglary by 1 percent between 1994 and 1995. Violence crime increased by 0.2 percent to 310,900 offenses. Seven hundred forty-five homicides were initially recorded in 1995. The number of notifiable offenses in which guns were reported to have been used increased by 1 percent between 1994 and 1995, to 13,100. These represent 0.3 percent of all notifiable offenses recorded by the police. The number of such offenses other than those committed with air weapons declined by 5 percent to 5,600 offenses. The clearance rate was 26 percent; arrests declined by 2 percent in 1995 to 1.7 million. Magistrates courts completed 1.93 proceedings; the number of persons tried at the Crown Court increased by 3.5 percent to 89,000. The use of immediate custody as a sentence increased significantly in both courts. The average inmate population was 51,000. Figures, tables, and appended background information