Within England and Wales, a steady decline of Football-Related Arrests has been confirmed through data produced by the UK Government and compiled from 43 Police Forces and the British Transport Police. This research study aims to provide a better understanding to patterns of football-related arrests and crime (FRC), reasons for its occurrence and how it varies across England and Wales. To test the research hypotheses set out for this study each hypothesis has been linked to a different region, area or city within England and Wales. The study also incorporated factors that may impact FRC. These factors included the subcultural theory, changes in policing and the impact of historic working-class industries. The methods used for this study involved creating proportional symbol maps to display the clubs with the most and fewest football-related arrests and a hotspot density map to visualise areas with the concentration of arrests. Percentages of over 16s without qualifications and voting percentages were assessed against football-related offences using regression to display any statistical variance or correlation. The results found a significant correlation between increasing football-related arrest and a higher percentage of unqualified over 16s. This significance highlighted the potential presence of the subcultural theory in these regions. With a general trend of declining football-related arrests across England and Wales it may be easy to assume the rates of crimes relating to football have also declined. Within Greater Manchester policing cuts have impacted the ability to follow up crimes to produce arrests, this indicates an issue with accepting this general trend. The differences between Labour and Conservative majority areas displayed two significant differences in offences committed. A positive correlation was found between throwing missile arrests and Conservative majority areas whilst, Labour majority areas saw a positive correlation with arrests for possession of an offensive weapon. Another result established from this study was the higher occurrence of football-related arrests in areas of historic working-class industry. This study concludes suggesting future legislations and policies should target the areas with the highest football-related arrests and consider the reasons for these football-related arrests to increase success. Additionally, policing cuts should be assessed as increasing policing cuts could exasperate issues emphasised within this study. This study underlines the causes and factors affecting the variation of football-related arrests and the need for increased research to ensure what has been witnessed at Euro 2020 does not reflect the next few years of football-related crime and arrests.
PLEASE NOTE: You must be a member of the University of Lincoln to be able to view this dissertation. Please log in here.