So, you’re talking with someone about politics and they say something really dumb and wrong and you know it’s wrong but you don’t have the arguments and facts at your fingertips to make a decisive point. That’s where our election series, The Standard line, comes in. The info you need in bite-size form. Today, crime:
Points:
– Crime is down. When Labour came to power, there were 1200 offences reported per 10,000 people, each year. Now there are 1000.
– There were 8,000 fewer crimes in total reported last year than 1999 and 25,000 more were solved.
– The crime figures we hear about are only reported crimes. The evidence is that reporting of crime is up because of public awareness campaigns and because cell-phones making reporting crimes immediately easier. We know two types of crimes that always have nearly 100% reporting – homicides and burglaries (you can’t claim insurance if you don’t report a burgulary to the Police). Homicides are down 10% per capita, burglaries are down 18%.
– reported violent crime is up but the experts say this is due to higher reporting of family violence. The number of violent street crimes actually fell 1% last year. Reported violent offences were up 30%. Think about it: is it credible that violence within families actually went up that much in one year for no reason even while homicides and street violence went down? No.
-Family violence has long been under-reported and in the last year there has been a strong campaign to get people to report family violence – that is the explanation for the increase in reporting.
-The entire increase in violent crimes and sexual crimes since Labour came to power comes from higher reporting of family violence.
-while every violent crime is bad, it is worth noting that there is less than 1 violent crime per 100 people a year.
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