Despite all the noise nobody has advanced any serious critique of the latest crime figures. Both BCS numbers and recorded crime figures show a similar picture – continuing a downward trend since the mid-90’s. The most common response from those who don’t believe the figures (see Dale & Dizzy recently) seems to simply be ”I don’t believe those figures” which is hard to refute – not because of its wisdom but rather its banality.
To be fair the figures themselves point out that ‘fear of crime’ is rising and that public perception is that crime is on the up. I broadly accept the premise in the Guardian’s leader today that politicians and the media need to do more to address this erroneous perception even if doing so means they forego the chance to score a few political points. Over on CentreRight Peter Whittle has a theory on why this disjoin exists:
Cameron’s ‘broken society’ theme is just that – a theme or narrative around which he can shape his party’s image and hang policies together in a coherent way for voters. Like any campaigning device it’s overblown and relies on hyperbole and loose attention to detail to make it work. I can live with that. In so far as it might address the low-level anti-social stuff referred to above it’s something I support. But as yesterday’s figures show the reality of our society is, in many ways, not broken at all and we’ve never been safer or less likely to be the victim of crime. That applies across most of the Western world so, try though they might, it’s not something Labour can take exclusive credit for but neither is it something Cameron can ignore.
To be fair the figures themselves point out that ‘fear of crime’ is rising and that public perception is that crime is on the up. I broadly accept the premise in the Guardian’s leader today that politicians and the media need to do more to address this erroneous perception even if doing so means they forego the chance to score a few political points. Over on CentreRight Peter Whittle has a theory on why this disjoin exists:
“I'd suggest that the reason people feel that crime is more rampant is because, on an everyday level, they see low-level disturbances and anti-social behaviour which might actually fly under the radar of criminality, but which manages to alienate, frighten and disturb. Eventually, many draw the conclusion that there is a growing 'lawlessness.' The public arena appears to be increasingly dangerous to be in, and so they retreat from it.”There’s something to that analysis but I don’t think it absolves the politicians and parts of the media who go too heavy on the ‘broken society’ theme. There’s no evidence that the ‘radar of criminality’ is particularly dysfunctional so the sort of behaviour he’s talking about is likely to be loutish, rude behaviour, inconsiderate and perhaps vaguely threatening but not overtly criminal. Speaking from purely personal experience (always dangerous) I think that sort of behaviour among young people is on the rise but we need to be very careful with our words here. If I’m right then that’s evidence of a more selfish society, less polite and deferential perhaps but not more criminal.
Cameron’s ‘broken society’ theme is just that – a theme or narrative around which he can shape his party’s image and hang policies together in a coherent way for voters. Like any campaigning device it’s overblown and relies on hyperbole and loose attention to detail to make it work. I can live with that. In so far as it might address the low-level anti-social stuff referred to above it’s something I support. But as yesterday’s figures show the reality of our society is, in many ways, not broken at all and we’ve never been safer or less likely to be the victim of crime. That applies across most of the Western world so, try though they might, it’s not something Labour can take exclusive credit for but neither is it something Cameron can ignore.
11 Comments:
That's fair Liam. Have a word with Dale will you? Dizzy is beyond help.
Thanks Chris but you over estimate the influence I have with Iain...!
That's interesting. I wonder if it's a corollary to the 'broken windows' approach to crime - i.e. if minor problems go unchallenged they're likelier to lead to more serious crimes taking place. Conversely, perhaps the more minor 'sub-crime' people see, the likelier they are to think that crime more generally is on the up?
Although the media are a bunch of shrieking psychos on this too, which doesn't help. And broken windows don't a broken society make!
Cassie
Reason so many don't believe the dfigures is twofold:
i) local crime stories tend to be discussed in pubs and they serve to amplify perceptions.
ii) at the nastional level tabloids do the above to an even greater extent, so we all think 'knife crime' is an epidemic while figures for it have remained stable for the past decade.
OK, I admit it: the media is to blame!
must be all them cctv cameras.
Chris: I thought it was Dale beyond help, can't teach an old dog new tricks and all that, but Dizzy is still young enough to train...
It is usually said that crime reporting is down and in any case C the police are now devoted to almost nothing but producing good stats . Its not that hard to do and I thought Burning our money made a good effort.( You saw that ?)
I knew the Labour leader in Islington a bit and she told me of her frustration that when it was quite clear that the place was descending into near anarchy there were always these lovely figures that made it appear otherwise .
I was mugged twice , reported one of them , had four bikes stolen and reported none of them had my car broken four time and did not report and had two bikes and a scooter stolen , I reported the last one .
I think the real point is that with the amount of wealth that has poured into the country in the last ten years we should have said goodbye to 70s/80s crime levels . In fact crime is now emanating from a small nucleus in the underclass of some 20,000 families in entrenched dependency. The chjaging pattern is the hidden answer to the puzzle .
From the vantage of those who has risen into a broad middling category , their activities are more worrying than the crime we were used to in lawless and tough areas inhabited by the majority. Its not that crime is increasing overall it’s the type of crime and its inexplicability that scares people to whom the word of these criminals is now alien
The 'Burning our money' attempted rebuttal was awful - it couldn't land a single blow on the figures and just insisted on making a comparison that's statistical nonsense because it suited him.
The BCS contains a cap on the number of times a victim can suffer repeat crimes e.g. domestic violence victims or people who are terrorised by thugs on a regular basis.
The problem with this is that whilst the cap is constant every year we have no idea what is happening to the underlying figure i.e. the figure once the cap is removed.
The impact of the cap is not weighted to be proportionate to the level of crime that is being capped. So all we can say is: if we asume that the propotion of repeat victims is unchanged on previous years, and the average number of repeat crimes they suffer is unchanged on previous years then the trend is up or down.
It’s just plain silly to pretend that the impact of the cap is constant year on year without showing any evidence that the uncapped level of crime is constant.
See my response at your place 'mjw' - you're misunderstanding the purpose of the cap and how it functions.
I've seen your response and frankly it doesn't justify the capping, it's essentially saying that certain types of crimes don’t count because they might produce inconvenient results. Deliberately removing the kind of victims who suffer most has absolutely nothing to do with producing meaningful statistics. If crimes only count when we want them to count why bother doing it; just so we can say “oh look crime is up/down as long as we cut out an indeterminate number of them that we don’t think are worthy of inclusion”?
Simple solution would be to publish two sets, one capped and one uncapped, the government can spin which ever they like, but at least we'd also have a genuine like for like measure of crime which doesn't artificially "manage the impact" of some of the most stubborn forms of criminal behaviour. That this doesn't happen suggests to me that this is not a serious statistical exercise.
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