I really wish more publicity was given to the figures that the Home Office use.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hors217.pdf (add up figures on pages 12 and 13)

This is dated several years ago but it gives the total number of crimes as being around 62 million. The BCS and police figures give a much much smaller number.

I’m not entirely sure what point this post is trying to make – and I’m afraid it is appallingly written.

Though I would be interested to know what exactly was being done in the 10 knife crime target areas which brought down the number of offences.

Agree with cj; huge barn doors are being missed here.

A few years ago, a young Glasgow doctor working in A&E realised that the official figures for assaults with edged weapons had to be wrong, as his hospital alone could barely cope.

The answer? When blade wound victims were treated, many of them just slipped out and went home, and the police refused to recognise that a crime had taken place.

So although Glasgow’s record for knife attacks is officially very bad, in reality it is much worse.

As for this

‘I suspect a lot of this fear is trapped within a vicious circle, stemming from the upper echelons of British society.’

Take a walk with me round my neighbourhood, Mr Trodd, and I’ll introduce you to the fear of ordinary people.

Doesn’t inspire confidence at the beginning of an article when the author can’t even spell the names of the recipients of their abuse. It’s George Osborne, not George Osbourn.

Besides the highly debatable merits of his prose style, Mr Trodd simply vaguely asserts a couple of things, hugely broad generalities which upon any consideration are at best naive, at worst, utter bollocks, without evidence, accepted theory (be it social, psychological, whatever), even without bloody anecdote.
Has Mr Trood ever been on the receiving end? I have (both assailants getting 4 years, because I was lucky there were witnesses willing to come forward), and from the sample size of one (tongue-in-cheek), plus the small matter of proven evidence in court, it wasn’t fear that drove the assailants (not with the long, long list of previous they both have) but plain immorality, and a belief that they can do what they want. Constrained? I’m bloody glad they’re now constrained.
I am impeccably left/liberal, and will always back attempts to understand crime etc, but the likes of Mr Trodd fill me with despair because of their failure to acknowledge individual agency. To understand something does not mean to excuse it. Yup, there may be wider social forces at work, but they don’t actually compel one to bloody well carry and use a knife

CJ –
It probably doesn’t make a different, but my opening paragraph was actually phrased like this:
”I’d like to offer a different take on today’s crime statistics, which: have been boiled down and put on the front page of the Guardian; will presumably secure a significant slot on the BBC news this evening; and will inevitably be subject to the patronising and cynical ‘Broken Britain’ drones and hand-wringing of David Cameron, George Osbourn and Chris Grayling.’

My point is that the figures have been simplified and boiled down, and so a mere glance at the headlines doesn’t tell the true story.

Edwin
A lot of people have disputed the figures. Although I agree the crime statistics are not always reliable, hospital admissions are actually very clear and robust, I think. If you get stabbed, you’re going need treatment. If you get mugged, there may be a fear of stigma to ever even bringing it up.

There has been a massive increase in violence over the last 10-12 yrs which until a few years ago, the politicians were in denial about.

3.4 Edwin Moore . I totally agree. It would be interesting to look at A and E statistics over the last 10-12 years on injuries . Much violent crime is never reported to the police.
One issue which should be looked at is the ease at which firearms can be obtained.
The Mets Flying squad was set up to deal largely with armed criminals. Very few criminals used firearms in the 50s. The reality is that in certain areas many teenagers can obtain firearms. This increases the fear as people realise a confrontation can result in someone obtaining a firearm within a half hour and then come hunting for them( happened in the Elephant and Castle in London).

Once it is known a gang can obtain firearms and are prepared to use them, it enables them to use fear to obtain control an area. In fact once a gang controls an area the violence can be reduced, however the fear is still there(The Krays and Richardson are examples of this in the 60s). The problem is that in parts of the UK the public are more scared of the gangs than have confidence in the Police to protect them.

Gabe, robust as hospital admissions are, as I said above, knife assaults often do not become crime statistics. But don’t ask me, ask the experts who founded Medics Against Violence —

http://www.medicsagainstviolence.co.uk/

The left commonly projects fear of crime as if it were a concept invented by the Daily Mail, but there is very little examination of the fact that so much crime is underreported, as is undoubtedly the case with knife crime.

To take an example: a friend of mine worked as a steward at T in the Park (‘Nedstock’) a few years ago. On the second day there was a mass assault on the fence by hundreds of young men – when cars was driven at the fence the security was pulled out and the hordes streamed in. When my friend went home, he expected it to be all over the news. It wasn’t. The organisers realise that publishing such incidents can affect their profits, so they hush it up.

Try tackling that one instead of invoking the usual spectres!

Edwin. What I’m really getting at is the fear of crime and the damage that be caused by media hyperbole and political positioning. The proportion of people who perceive an increase in crime nationally (75 per cent) is far higher than that which perceives an increase in crime locally (36 per cent). The difference is great for knife crime (93 per cent of people think there has been an increase nationally, compared with 29 per cent locally) and gun crime (86 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively), despite actual reductions in both these offences. Clearly, this is indicative of a generalised anxiety about crime in Britain, rather than perceptions based on personal experiences.

I’m quite turned off by statistics generally. I’m much more concerned that there’s so much anxiety around crime, that some (not all) of the youngsters who report carrying a knife are doing so purely for protection.

No, I’m afraid it doesn’t make a difference.

Vacuities such as
“I suspect a lot of this fear is trapped within a vicious circle, stemming from the upper echelons of British society.”
are inexcusable, if not meaningless.

“The proportion of people who perceive an increase in crime nationally (75 per cent) is far higher than that which perceives an increase in crime locally (36 per cent). The difference is great for knife crime (93 per cent of people think there has been an increase nationally, compared with 29 per cent locally) and gun crime (86 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively), despite actual reductions in both these offences. Clearly, this is indicative of a generalised anxiety about crime in Britain, rather than perceptions based on personal experiences.”

If you are turned off by statistics it’s probably better to leave them alone.
Over what period were people asked to consider whether crime had increased or decreased?
A year? Several years? A decade?

Anyway, the more interesting question is what has been done in those target areas to reduce offending?
Is it my hard-arsed policing?
Is it Daniel H-G’s outeach workers?
Is it both?

“Edwin. What I’m really getting at is the fear of crime and the damage that be caused by media hyperbole and political positioning.”

Although this is also balanced by the fact that the British crime survey and the police ifugres seriously underestimate the amount of crime in this country. The Home Office’s own figures (see my first post) give a better idea of how bad things are.

Personally I’ve never been a victim of crime, partly because I spent the first 24 years of my life living in a very nice area. However, I am not blind to how bad things are outside of my own little bubble.

Richard. Are you a Tory or a Libertarian poster? Every blog seems to have at least a couple. I’m not saying people should lie/deny/cover up crime. There are problems out there that need a lot more work. But going on about ‘Broken Britain,’ boliing down statstics and then proposing that a solution would be to confiscate mobile phones does nothing to address the issues.

Gabe, you do realise that your line comes perilously close to telling folk not to bother with hard evidence/statistics, nor their own experiences and perceptions, but instead to rely on your singular interpretation, which is based on, er, statistics?

Alisdair – sorry, but you clearly don’t understand the issue. Take note of statistics. But don’t boil them down, hype them up, patronise urban communities and then use them to fuel the ‘Broken Britain’ narrative. The changes in statistics simply don’t support the ‘crime is out of control and getting worse’ narrative. Presuming you’re a Tory – confiscating mobile phones, cutting police costs and bulking up stop and search powers will make a delicate and difficult situation worse.

Presuming you’re a Tory

WTF? Where do you get off on that, Mr Trodd?I’m avowedly not NewLab, far from it, but I’m not, and never have been a Tory. Asking for moral responsibility isn’t Tory (q. far from it) Less of the bullshit with narratives, too, please. I live right in the city centre and daily see violent crime and disorder, plus encounter it with my work to boot. As others have pointed out, underreporting is absolutely rife: try dealing with punters day-in, day-out who appear with savage, untreated wounds and contusions because they want to stay off the radr, or think that services can’t or won’t be of any help. It is you patronising urban communities by making out we are the victims of circumstances without any individual moral agency.
I don’t advocate confiscating mobiles or other such gimmicky rubbish, and please point to where I have said anything remotely resembling that: it’s newLab, too, who pioneered floating such idiot notions (remember marching offenders to cashpoints).
What you seem to have patently overlooked is that there is world of difference between explaining something and excusing it, and you seem too inclined to the latter. Oh, and apologise for the Tory slur.

Alisdair – I haven’t said that there should be no moral agency in communities. You’ve just read an article about the media coverage and perceptions of a new batch of statistics, with your own agenda that concerns individual responsibility when it comes to criminal patterns of behaviour. This article is about media coverage, and perception. It’s a different discussion to the one you’re trying to have.

Gabe, you’re getting a lot of stick on this thread, largely because you deserve it. Good on you for coming on and fighting your corner, but please do stop making matters worse by assuming that anyone who disagrees with you is either a Tory or ‘Libertarian’ (with upper or lower case cap).

Gabe, the stats are deeply unreliable, given the reporting mechanisms and the use (or not) thereof: the media report the flawed stats one way, you another. Neither can claim greater validity to knowing the ‘truth’, given the patchiness and paucity of reliable data. You come with your agenda, which is to tell people that their perceptions are wrong. Their perceptions may indeed be wrong, but you haven’t the substantive evidence to prove this, given that nobody can accurately tell what the true rate is.
When you maintain, however, that knife-carriers do so out of being

vulnerable, constrained, fearful people, while that may explain things, your tenor seems to be that it excuses them, which is the realm of moral agency

I’m not sure I would want Gabe “government relations executive” Trodd on my side I have to say.
He slips into petulant mode very fast.

And if this is the calibre of “policy advisor at the Criminal Law Policy Unit” I’m not wholly surprised that we are where we are.

When people have seen teenagers carry firearms( tucked into te waist band of their trousers) , even if not used or seen a holdall place on a bar in pub full of firearms then people are likely to be worried. Part of reason for fear is that people know from experience than an altercation over trivial issues , can within a few seconds, escalate to someone being knifed or shot. If they report the incident to the Police they are concerned that their identity will come known to the criminals who will carry out acts of violence on them in retribution; especially as they live in the same area. People do not trust the Police to be able to deter criminals from revenge attacks on witnesses. As was said by Sun Tzu ” Murder one and terrorise 10,000″.

Into is not just the violence , it is the degree of savagery which is part of the problem.

“But going on about ‘Broken Britain,’ boliing down statstics and then proposing that a solution would be to confiscate mobile phones does nothing to address the issues.”

I happen to think confiscating mobile phones is a stupid idea.

The point I was trying to make is that we do have a serious crime problem based on figures that the Home Office use (but for some reason we rarely hear about them).

I’ve never understood why this has become the subject of a left-right divide in the way that it has (with the right talking of broken Britain and the left claiming things aren’t too bad). It poses problems for the right insofar as they have to accept that there will have to be significantly increased government spending (which they don’t like) on prisons and the police and an advantage for the left insofar as they can try and blame it on Thatcherism.