[Maypeevophy]

As London and the UK have increasingly been recording every trivial
crime and inflating crime figures, the US and particuarly NY has
been reclassifying crime and reducing the amount of crime it
records.

The UK's Violence Research Group - Hospital Admisions in England
and Wales Study tallies with the British Crime Survey. However
Bloombergs NY figures are in complete contrast to the NY Hospital
Admissions for Violent Crime.

Violence Research Group - http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/articl...ency-data.html

http://www.cipfa.org.uk/publicfinanc...?news_id=23686


These Stats Are a Crime

While Bloomberg boasts of crime drop, the hospitals'
work on assault victims is booming

by Paul Moses
November 1st, 2005


http://www.villagevoice.com/news/054...s,69552,5.html

At the same time advances in Emergency Surgery and Critical Care
have led to far more people surviving gun shot wounds, and this
has had a knock on effect on murder rates, particuarly in America.

http://www.healthleader.uthouston.ed...nges-0331.html



Gun Crime - Great Britain

In terms of gun crime there are only a handful of murders in Britain
every year, around 43 for the whole of England and Wales last year.
Scotland had a further 8 gun crime deaths, but this still only makes
a figure of 51.

When it comes to gun related crime, Britain is one of the safest
societies in the world.

[nickayary]

Something's Missing
Crime-stat revelation: 'Lost property' reports mysteriously soar
by Paul Moses
December 2005


Here is yet another indication that NY city's falling crime rate may be crime fiction:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/055...s,71322,5.html

[Lauramalina]

Gulliani's Crime Figures Examined -


Rudy Giuliani: The rooster who made the sun rise
By Joseph Dillon Davey
Online Journal Contributing Writer
May 31, 2007

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publ...cle_2030.shtml

The current polls indicate Rudy Giuliani is the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. On September 10, 2001, the odds against such a situation were astronomical. New Yorkers were not unhappy about the prospect of Rudy leaving public service and it appeared that his political career was over.

Giuliani’s leadership following September 11 was, if not actually Churchillian, at least a whole lot more inspiring than the seven and a half years that preceded that tragic attack. So it is with a note of admiration for his post-September 11 performance that I would like to set the record straight about Giuliani’s impact on crime in New York.

The public has widely accepted the idea that Rudy’s crime control methods miraculously brought down the crime rate in New York during his two terms as Mayor. There is very good reason to believe this is not so.

To give credit where credit is due, we should acknowledge that the “quality of life arrests” that the NY Police Department made under the Giuliani administration resulted in the removal of so many guns from the streets that the new policy -- aimed at squeegee men originally -- was largely responsible for the much publicized drop in gun homicides.

Minor offenders found themselves subjected to a full custody arrest rather than a “cite and release” ticket. These arrests revealed an extraordinary number of handguns and, under the Sullivan Act, the perpetrator was likely to wind up doing a year at Riker’s Island. More and more guns were, accordingly, left home. However, while Giuliani has claimed much credit for this decrease, a closer look raises some questions.

For instance, between 1995 and 1999 there was a 32 percent decrease in homicides nationwide. While it is true that New York saw a decrease in homicide of 43 percent during this same period, other big cities did even better. Boston, for example, had a decrease in their homicide rate of 67 percent, Los Angeles 54 percent, New Orleans 48 percent and Richmond, Virginia saw a drop of 48 percent. Does Rudy also get credit for those extraordinary decreases?

No one is quite sure why big cities have seen such a dramatic decrease in homicide. Demographic patterns are at least partially responsible, along with low unemployment rates and the historically unprecedented growth of incarceration. But there are few criminologists who think having the right mayor is a very significant explanation for these decreases.

On the opposite end of the crime spectrum from homicide is the rate of minor offenses. Rudy was successful at driving off the “squeegee men” and discouraging panhandling and jay walking.

However, his claims of great success at reducing the rate of felonies in the Big Apple are far from justified. What happened to crime rates elsewhere during Rudy’s regime?

The best method we have of counting crime is the National Crime Victimization Survey. (NCVS) The Survey was introduced in 1973 as an outgrowth of the Presidents Commission on Crime.

It has been widely imitated around the industrialized world and is considered by criminologists to be the most accurate measure of crime ever devised. For the nation as a whole, the NCVS shows a spectacular decrease in serious crime in all 50 states during the years that Giuliani was the Big Apple’s mayor. A close look at the numbers suggests that nothing very special happened in New York.

Giuliani claims that reported felonies decreased by 57 percent during his two terms in office (going from 8,259 to 3,556 felonies per week). How does this compare with other cities in the northeast?

The drop in crime nationwide during the first six years of Giuliani’s mayoralty was close to 40 percent, (Personal Crimes down from 318.9 to 198; Property Crimes down from 52.2 to 33.7).Moreover, the pattern of decreases in crime during the nineties has shown that the biggest decreases came disproportionately in the largest cities, especially those in the Northeast.

Giuliani may have enough of an inflated ego to claim his influence over the crime drop nationwide, but criminologists and political commentators should be expected to have a more discerning eye. And that is just part of it.
The major disadvantage of the NCVS is that it does not break down the figures by geographical location so that it does not provide us with figures on New York City. For the Big Apple, we only have the much less accurate figures from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). These are the figures that Rudy quoted in his State of the City speech.

The UCR depends on both the victim’s willingness to report the crime to the police and the police department’s willingness to characterize the crime as a “felony” and add it to the list of offenses sent to the FBI. By putting police administrators under pressure to lower the numbers, substantial changes can be brought about.

For example, about 65 percent of all felonies are “grand larcenies.” If a theft is reported to the police and the value of the thing stolen is less than $500, then the offense is a misdemeanor and will not be reported to the FBI. The police themselves are in the position of having to determine what the fair market value of the stolen property is.

Likewise, the majority of violent felonies are called “aggravated assault.” While they are included in the UCR, simple assaults are not. A “simple assault” is one that either does not involve a “deadly weapon” or does not involve “serious” injury. Again, the arresting officer is often able to characterize the “deadliness” of the weapon or the “seriousness” of the assault to determine whether or not a felony is being reported to them. (Some prosecutors ask how many stitches it took to stop the bleeding in order to determine if a felony or misdemeanor was committed)

As soon as Giuliani appointed William Bratton as Commissioner of NYPD things changed. In his book Turnaround: How America’s Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic, Bratton brags about the unprecedented pressure he put on precinct commanders to bring down crime statistics. These commanders were called to weekly meetings and excoriated if the crime numbers from their precincts were not decreasing.

In talking about these “Compstat” meetings, Bratton writes: “ . . . one good way to bring your career to a screeching halt was to bomb there consistently. Compstat was police Darwinism; the fittest survived and thrived.” (P.234 Bratton) This direct connection between crime statistics and an administrator’s career had never been seen before.

“Each commander was called upon,” writes Bratton, “to report on his precinct about once a month, and we had his precinct’s numbers in front of us.”(p.232) He goes on to explain how the precinct commander would then pressure the platoon commander who in turn would pressure the sergeants to question individual patrol officer’s. Was that broom handle really a “deadly weapon”? Was that stolen 10-speed bike really worth over $500? Was that car really stolen or just borrowed without permission by a brother-in-law? The discretion of the officer would be pivotal and very often that same officer needed a favor from his sergeant.

There are lots of little things that can make a cop’s life more pleasant. Assignments vary greatly; days off must be approved by someone above you. It was in everyone’s interest to make the number drop -- and under Giuliani this was a greater factor in New York than anywhere else.

The top brass of the NYPD were pressured to lean on their troops. Those troops were the arresting officers who had the discretion to characterize offenses as misdemeanors or felonies. Quite by coincidence a reporter for the New York Post stumbled upon a perfect example of this process about six months after September 11. According to the Post:


NYPD PROBES NUMBERS GAME ON CRIME STATS
By LARRY CELONA

March 14, 2002 -- EXCLUSIVE A Bronx police precinct is under investigation by NYPD Internal Affairs for allegedly doctoring crime statistics -- after The Post uncovered evidence that books were being cooked. Documents obtained by The Post show a rape recorded in the 50th Precinct was logged as a lesser crime -- thus giving a rare look into what some beat cops say is a statistical sleight of hand used by their commanders.

According to many patrol officers, commanders sometimes reclassify major crimes like murder, assault, robbery and rape as lesser offenses to make it appear they are winning the war on crime. But downgrading crimes is a serious violation, and commanders in the past have been removed for such actions. In the incident at the 50th Precinct, the March 8 rape of a woman at a Bailey Avenue hotel was recorded as an “inconclusive” incident.

Only on Tuesday, after The Post started asking questions, was the crime properly classified as rape. In the alleged sex attack, the suspect forced his estranged, 37-year-old wife to have sex at the hotel after she refused. The victim originally reported the attack to the 52nd Precinct, which classified it in its records as a sex assault. But after the assault was transferred to the 50th Precinct -- because of the hotel’s location -- it was downgraded to “inconclusive.”

It remained inconclusive, even after the Bronx district attorney last Saturday charged the man with first-degree rape and other sex crimes. It was changed to a sex assault only yesterday, the same day a Post reporter phoned. On Tuesday, 50th Precinct commander Capt. Thomas DiRusso denied wrongdoing. “I have nothing to hide,” he said. The department routinely inspects precinct crime statistics for irregularities.

Officers complain that commanders who reclassify crimes want to make it appear they are keeping crime down, thus boosting their chance for promotion. In 1998, Capt. Daniel Castro, a promising young commander and one of the department’s rising stars, lost his command after a review found he achieved an 80 percent crime drop after downgrading crimes like robbery and theft to “missing property.”

This unprecedented level of political pressure to reduce crime statistics could very well explain the rather minor differences between the fall in the New York crime rate and the fall in the national crime rate during the eight years of Giuliani’s administration. When two events occur simultaneously, there is a temptation to imply causation between the two. When Giuliani took office the Dow Jones average was about half of what it is today. Should Rudy be given credit for the economic boom across the country?

Rudy Giuliani may have had the good luck to serve as mayor during a period in which crime nationwide was falling at an unprecedented rate but we shouldn’t give the crowing rooster credit for the sunrise. And we should not rely upon cooked books of crime statistics to decide who should be our next president.

Joseph Dillon Davey is a professor in the Department of Law and Justice, Rowan University, Glassboro, N.J.

[sallythetolly]

Examples of Violent Crimes - Recorded by the Police in England
and Wales.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6656411.stm

A man from Cheshire who was cautioned for being "found in possession of an egg with intent to throw"

A child in Kent who was arrested after removing a slice of cucumber from a sandwich and throwing it at another youngster

A West Midlands woman arrested on her wedding day for criminal damage after her foot slipped on her accelerator pedal and her vehicle damaged a car park barrier

A child from Kent who was arrested for throwing cream buns at a bus

A 70-year-old Cheshire pensioner who was arrested for criminal damage after cutting back a neighbour's conifer trees

An officer in the West Midlands who was told to caution a man for throwing a glass of water over his girlfriend

Two children from Manchester who were arrested for being in possession of a plastic toy pistol

UK Recorded Crimes are used to secure police funding, don't record enough and you lose your funds, there is also a points system being tried out in parts of the country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/5298208.stm




September 13, 2007

Police chief says officers chasing targets distort
picture of crime

Sean O’Neill

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2441818.ece

The picture of violent crime in Britain is being distorted by nervous police officers recording minor incidents such as playground squabbles as serious incidents, a report on the state of policing says.

Sir Ronnie Flanagan, HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said yesterday that there was an urgent need for national leadership on cutting bureaucracy and for police officers on the frontline to begin to exercise judgment and discretion.
The police in Britain collect statistics differently to other countries, for instance half of all violent crime in the UK involves no injury to anybody, and involves harrasment, verbal threats and public order.

Simple Assaults, not counted in many other countries crime figures, make up the bulk of the other half of the UK Crime figures. Whilst car crime, burglaries and other crimes are falling.

Furthermore hospital admissions as a result of violent crime in England and Wales have fallen by over a quarter since 2000, and this is believed to be the most accurate indicator by many criminologists.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4480525.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6593207.stm

The vast majority of violent crime is due to drunken behaviour, and is mainly minor in nature.

Further changes in the way crime was recorded have also impacted on figures. What would have traditionaly been one offence is now recorded as multiple offences, and even the most trivial assaults are now recorded. These changes were bought in to being between 1997 abd 2003 and have had a detrimental impact on UK Crime Figures.

More details here -

http://www.anxietyculture.com/crimescare.htm

However further changes have been signaled by the Home Office, after an academic report called for trivial offences which result in no injury to anyone what so ever, to no longer be recorded as violent offences.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6157944.stm

http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ES...s/index12.aspx

[actioliGalm]

While London police record ever more trivial rubbish, the NYPD is
reclassfying crimes, fudging figures and doing the exact opposite.

The police unions in NY have been up in arms, and NY papers and
academics have been writing about it for years.

The end result is a lot more recorded crime for London and a lot less
for NY.

In the UK we don't have a system of felony or misdemeanor,
it all goes on the figures, as do property crime and robberies
under the value $500 (£250), simple assaults are also recorded
and our crime figures cover a much broader area which includes
very trivial offences.

Over half of violent crimes recorded in the UK results in no injury
to anyone whatsoever, and the vast majority of the rest involves
what would be classified as simple assaults and misdemeanors
under the US System and would not be included in NY's crime figures.

Changes in the Law have also had an impact on Crime Figures:
for instance the definition of rape is now far broader in the UK,
since the 2003 Sexual Offences Act, while new offences have
also been added, therefore increasing sex crime figures.

Although London still has very few sex crimes, this has led
to a higher percentage increase.

The 2003 Sexual Offences Act has had a major impact on the
recording and investigation of sexual offences in England and
Wales:

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 was introduced in May 2004 and altered the
definition and coverage of sexual offences. In particular, it re-defined indecent
exposure as a sexual offence which is likely to account for much of the increase
in 2004/05.

The definition of UK rape now also includes Oral Penetratrion.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/section7/chapter_a.html

The main provisions of the Act include the following:



Rape is widened to include oral penetration

Significant changes to the issue of consent and the abolition of the Morgan defence

Specific offences relating to children under 13, 16 and 18

Offences to protect vulnerable persons with a mental disorder

Other miscellaneous offences

Strengthening the notification requirements and providing new civil preventative orders.



Other Sexual offences in the UK such as Sexual grooming and Internet
Pornography/Paedophilla have led to a rise in sex crime figures in the UK,
with Scotland Yard and other agencies devoting more and more resources,
and making more arrests.

Marital/Spousal Rape was made an offence in 1991, and recent date rape,
illegal sex trade workers and indeed the advent of new metropolitan police
rape centres have all led to an increase in reported rapes.

[flienianO]

Finally.......

Crime figures often just reflect police activity.

For Example if the police launch a robbery initiative then street crime arrests
and the reporting of street crime will increase.

If the police launch a crack down on Domestic Violence, then figures for violent assault charges will also increase (One in four assaults in the UK are domestics).

Likewise if the police launch an initiative to encourage rape victims to come forward, then rape figures will increase dramaticaly.

There are also discrepencies in figures, the UK police now record crime that would have just been recorded as one crime in the past as multiple crimes. While half of all violent crime in the UK results in no injury to anyone at all.

Violent crime in the UK covers a much broader area than in the US, for example verbal assault, harrasement, common assault are all recorded as violent crimes (in the same way felonys are in the US) even though they result in no injury. Of the other 50% of Violent Crime, the vast majority are simple assaults resulting in cuts and bruises.

The UK Police are now the subject of a target culture and have to meet targets for recorded crime. The system has been broadly criticised as performance targets have increased numbers of trivial offences and taken discretion away from officers, who now feel that they must make an arrest in order to meet targets and to justify budgets, which will be cut if they don't meet targets.

There have been cases of children arrested for using chalk on the pavement or people being arrested for offences they would not have been arrested for in the past, when police officers had more discretion and could make decisions themselves.

More reliable figures regarding violent crime are hospital casualty
figures.

There has been a 25% reduction in hospital admissions due to violent crime since 2000 in England and Wales according to Professor Shepherd and his violence research group at Cardiff University Medical School - (see my earlier posts)

As for serious assaults, they are often reported in the UK, as the person
assaulted can claim criminal injuries compensation running in to thousands
of pounds.

UK - Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority -

https://www.cica.gov.uk/portal/page?..._schema=PORTAL

Likewise anyone who is insured would be stupid not to report a robbery, car theft or house break in, when they could claim the money back on insurance, and a crime must be reported
to the police and given a crime number before an insurance company will deal with any claim.

[ligaliaCods]

Look. All I know is that I and many other people feel about 10 times safer in Manhattan than in Central London. The lack of the same type of drinking culture that the Brits have is probably more than 50% of the cause of this. The other 50% is something I dont know about.

From The Guardian
Crime doesn't pay

Neal Lawson

April 27, 2007 5:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/...oesnt_pay.html
The rise in street crime will come as no surprise to parents of children, especially boys, living in urban areas. I've lost count of the time my youngest son, who is 16, has had his phone stolen under the threat of violence. It now seems to be a routine aspect of young adults lives. Why?
I think there are two factors. The first is the obvious - you have got something that I haven't and I'm big enough and strong enough to take it from you. When I was young we carried nothing of value and neither did anyone else. So street crime was rare. Now kids as young as six and seven might have a mobile and an MP3 player that are worth £500. So there is value in it. But it is more than that. The type of phone or iPod you have is of huge symbolic importance. "What does your phone say about you" the advert goes. The answer is a lot. We judge each other and crucially ourselves by the quality of the consumer goods we carry and wear. And it matters much more to poorer children. Also, for those who are short on love, care and hope, the type of trainers or mobile they have in relation to those around them takes on huge significance.
My kids live in a middle class area of south London. It's leafy and pleasant. But all around are estates and towns that are much less well to do. So their area becomes a honey trap for poorer children who want the best phone or music player too - because that is what society tells them matters.
But with phone thefts there is more going on. Now, as soon you report the incident the phone is immobilised and is useless. The thieves know this. So why do it? For no better reason, it seems, than they can. For a moment they can take control of lives in which they mostly feel utterly helpless.
We are breading a generation with no fear. They don't value their own lives, so how can they value anyone else's? Society clearly doesn't value them. It brings them up in poverty on rotting estates. Schools are run for league tables and they can't keep up. Social mobility is declining. Unlike their parents they are more likely to stay poor. They can see the levels of inequality all around them. Their inferiority in our consumer society is continuously pushed in their face. They can't keep pace, let alone ever win, by playing by the rules because the rules are not made for or, by them. So they cheat. And let's face it, they get plenty of encouragement to do that from politicians, business people, sports stars and now television shows.
The response to this line of argument is often: "well not all poor kids steal or mug so why excuse those who do?" It's not to excuse, it is to understand the reasons why things seem to be getting out of hand. It can't just be that by some accident moral codes are slipping. They slip for a reason. And one of the biggest drivers is the possessive individualism that was spawned in the Thatcher years and has not been curtailed after 10 years of New Labour.
Every time my son comes home following the frustration and humiliation of having his phone taken or having been chased we talk about where he goes and what he does. But I try to talk to him about the lives of others and what it might be like to feel so insecure, to have such little hope or perhaps parents that don't talk much or show their love.
I can't buy his safety just as I can't keep him in doors forever more. We can only solve the crime wave on our streets by doing it together as a society. That means getting a better balance between the importance of consumption and wider notion of wellbeing and crucially a better balance between the rich and the poor.

One reader from Britain then comments:

Well I could say we haven�t seen anything yet. The country is still relatively prosperous and we can just about afford our current welfare system , health and education services. Of course some of this prosperity comes from the use of cheap unregulated EU labour and illegals. Prosperity for some but a disaster for the already poorly paid unskilled and semiskilled.
We have a seaming inability to deal with illegal immigration which is running at an unprecedented rate and is increasing the breakdown of social cohesion. Not unique to us, it appears that Sweden is starting to feel the pinch and has record levels of crime, particularly in Malmo ( heaviest concentration of immigrants ). Managed migration and integration works but social cohesion breaks down when it is not controlled. Who is suffering the most in the USA? Poor whites and blacks.
What happens when the economic shit hits the fan? It already has. Recent interest rate rises have certainly affected my families standard of living, as have all the other hikes in prices. Not to mention the cap on wage settlements.
I will soon have to seriously consider sending the kids out foraging for extra money to pay the bills. A bit of mugging and burglary of people perceived to be more wealthy. Given my scientific skills I could produce some methamphetamine or even more powerful psychedelics. There will of course be a demand as people increasingly try to avoid the brutal reality of living in 21st Britain.
Of course I and my family would never consider criminality as a solution and we do not consider poverty as a sufficient excuse for indulging in criminality. Smug, no way. I and my wife have struggled all of our lives to keep a roof over our heads and keep the children fed and clothed. We will continue to do so. The world doesn�t owe anyone a living, and given the rise of other economies we all have to knuckle under and do our best. If we don�t we are all lost.

Also from the GuardianA criminal misunderstanding

Natalie Bennett

July 24, 2006 11:34 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/...rstanding.html
The latest crime figures are out, and newspapers are, as usual, competing among themselves to find the most negative possible spin to put on them.
"The British Crime Survey, which interviews 45,000 individuals, showed that the total number of crimes rose by 1 per cent to 10.9 million compared with a peak of 19.4 million in 1995," reports The Times.
"A big rise in street robberies across England and Wales rocked the Home Office...," says the Telegraph.
Overall crime recorded by police fell by 1 per cent, while that recorded by the Crime Survey rose by one per cent. Now I was a member of a university class that jointly only passed statistics when they dropped the required mark to about 10 per cent, but I'd confidently guess that neither of those figures is statistically significant, given the range of variables in their calculation.
But even were the swings bigger, would they mean anything at all? Not much.
Those papers with a little sense of perspective already acknowledge, if in nine point body-type rather than a 60-point headline, that the "recorded" figure reflects police activity and interests, rather than any actual conditions. Were police to suddenly decide to focus on jaywalking in central London (which would be a great idea from my point of view as a cyclist - particularly the highly dangerous offence of "mobile phone walking") , the rate of the offence in the figures would suddenly leap, but be no reflection of changed conditions on the ground.
So, it is generally thought, comparisons of what crimes people report privately to questioners are more accurate. And perhaps they are, over a short period. But are comparisons over time by this measure any more accurate?
Public perception of "what is crime" changes over the years and decades, much more, generally, than legal definitions change. So I'd suggest that historical comparisons have little or no veracity.
Some crimes you might say don't change - say the biggie, murder. Well no, at the centre it might be simple - but conceptions of murder and manslaughter change over the years. And what about the specialised case of infanticide - regarded relatively sympathetically in some periods and less so in others? And given the state of modern forensic science, are not cases that previously might have been dismissed as accidents more likely to be identified as murders?
But murder of course is an extremely rare crime. Think of something more common, that really will affect the overall figures. Let's imagine a scenario. Teenage boy regularly beats up and terrorises a fellow school pupil and steals the contents of his pockets. Parents of victim eventually find out; father of victim confronts father of bully. Blows are exchanged. Blood is shed. Bully, who learnt that "might is right" from his father's leather belt, is again beaten by father for causing all the trouble.
Until very recently, the chances of the police being involved at any point in that string of events would be miniscule. Today, it could very easily end up being classified as half a dozen "assaults occasioning actual bodily harm" and "robberies", with a few child abuse charges thrown in for good measure. Certainly, the theft of the victim pupil's mobile phone and iPod will end up in the statistics, so that parents can claim on their insurance.
And that's great. I'm not in any way suggesting that shouldn't be the case. For all the odd obviously ridiculous prosecution of children that got out of hand and should have been dealt with by school discipline, the fact that society is expressing through the law and the courts the fact that physical clashes of any sort are unacceptable is a good thing.
These changes all reflect the fact that we are now more civilised, less violent to each other, than any time in the past. Just think back. Domestic violence wasn't seen as a crime; beating the hell out of your children was just "discipline". Two blokes "having a go" in the pub car park after closing time was highly unlikely to attract attention, unless the whole crowd watching piled in too. Someone of wealth and status would probably drink drive, kill someone, then bulldoze through the police, pay off the necessary relatives and get away with it. These were just "what happened", "a bit of biff", not a "crime".
It mightn't be a fashionable thing to say, and certainly a hard line to get on the front page of a newspaper, but in fact you are almost certainly less likely to be subject to violence now in the UK than in any time in history. And if you are unlucky enough to be a victim, you are far more likely to end up in the statistics than at any time in the past. (And you don't need to just take my word for this, see what a magistrate has to say.)
Yet probably more people fear crime, change their lives because of fear of violent crime, than at any time in certainly the recent past, to their harm, and the harm of general society. (The way to really greatly cut your risk is not to go to the pub late at night if you're a drunk young bloke, and if you are a heterosexual woman to be celibate - two sets of recommendations unlikely to have a high take-up rate.) Instead, people are staying in, locking themselves behind giant bars, and getting in their cars rather than catching public transport - measures whose costs usually far outweigh the risks they are trying to avoid.
Partly the fear - and the utter irrational level of terror about the stranger in the later-night street - is because we're now more risk-averse, and partly because we're much more media-saturated. So why not go out and enjoy that late evening summer stroll in comfort and confidence? That's provided, of course, you're celibate and sober.

And as for the guns/no guns debate:

From the Guardian

Unarmed and dangerous?

Ben Whitford

February 23, 2007 7:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/...dangerous.html
The recent spate of shootings in Manchester and London may have shocked Brits, but they came as no surprise to many on this side of the Atlantic. The NRA (rallying cry: “Outlaw guns and you arm the outlaws”) and its allies have long known that British society, with its draconian gun control laws and even - heaven forfend! - a handgun ban, was a ticking bomb.
“The English approach has not reduced violent crime,” notes Joyce Lee Malcolm, an academic at MIT and Bentley College. “Instead it has left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who are confident that their victims have neither the means nor the legal right to resist them."
The logic is simple: putting guns in the hands of honest citizens deters criminals. With current rules making it impossible for even the Olympic shooting team to get their hands on a shooter, it was only a matter of time before the criminal backlash began. Consider this editorial by John Lott, a researcher whose proclivity for female impersonation has not prevented him from becoming one of America’s more influential pro-gun voices:
"Crime was not supposed to rise after handguns were banned in 1997. Yet, since 1996 the serious violent crime rate has soared by 69%: robbery is up by 45% and murders up by 54%. Before the law, armed robberies had fallen by 50% from 1993 to 1997, but as soon as handguns were banned the robbery rate shot back up, almost back to their 1993 levels."
QED? Well, not quite. For starters, in 1998 - just after the UK banned handguns - the police changed the way they counted crimes. Crimes like common assault and harassment were reclassified as violent crimes; the underlying crime rates stayed the same, but the recorded crime rate almost doubled overnight. Further changes came in 2002, when police introduced a national standard for recording crime; the Home Office estimates the move inflated violent crime figures by at least another 20%.
According to the British Crime Survey, which combines police records with a large-scale survey of UK residents and is acknowledged as the gold standard of British crime statistics, the people of Britain are at less risk of being the victim of a crime today than at any point since the survey began in 1981. Violent crime rates have fallen by 43% since 1995; burglary and car thefts have both fallen by more than half. It’s true that murder rates have been running high in recent years - partly due to the retrospective inclusion of Harold Shipman’s victims - but last year they fell back to about the same level as in 1997, even including the 52 victims of the July bombings.
Even the violent crimes we suffer aren’t usually all that violent. You won’t hear it from the gun lobby, but well over a third of the "violent crimes" recorded in Britain last year were crimes like common assault or harassment that involved no physical injury to the victim. A further 43% of cases involved "less serious woundings" like bruises, grazes or black eyes. These may have been traumatic experiences for their victims, but they were scuffles, not shootings. In the vast majority of these cases, the presence of a gun would only - could only - have made matters worse.
The gun lobby’s fervent belief in the deterrent power of firearms is based on a leaky flotilla of half-truths and half-baked research. The NRA used to fete Kennesaw, Georgia, where gun ownership was made mandatory; unfortunately, subsequent analyses showed that the town's crime rates didn't change after the law was passed. Others trumpet criminologist Gary Kleck, whose work suggests that firearms are used defensively 2.5 million times a year in the United States, preventing some 400,000 murders. Since this would mean gun-toting vigilantes preventing about 15 deaths for every murder that actually takes place, it’s clear his estimate is far too high. (More reliable studies, based on victim surveys and police data, put rates of defensive gun uses at less than a twentieth of Kleck's figure.)
Still, if the cowboys have trouble with calculators there’s plenty of reliable evidence for one thing: the availability of guns leads to murder and mayhem. Ninety people a day were killed with guns in America during the 1990s; three hundred a day more were wounded. People with guns in their home are three times more likely to commit suicide; people living in states with weak gun control laws are ten times more likely to die in an accidental shooting. American children are ten times as likely to die in a gun accident as children in other developed countries. The studies and statistics are too numerous to list here (check out David Hemenway’s excellent Private Guns, Public Health for many, many more) but the facts are clear: guns may not kill people, but people with ready access to guns are far more likely to kill.
The US gun lobby are past masters at cherrypicking nuggets of data to lend a veneer of credibility to their claims; and it’s true that there are areas in which Britain still has much work to do. We have higher rates of crime than many other rich countries; worse, the brunt is born by the most impoverished few percent of the population. But we aren’t a nation under siege; the recent shootings notwithstanding, our problem with violent crime can more often be traced to a surfeit of Stella than to a shortage of Saturday night specials. We shouldn’t let the US gun lobby convince us otherwise - and nor should we hold still while they twist the facts, presenting us as a dreadful warning in order to advance their own agenda.

[Hervams]

Central London is probably one of the safest areas in the world, every car number plate coming in to the city is scanned and virtually every street in central london has CCTV Survailance, there are tens of thousands of cameras, which are watched 24 hours a day. Like Manhattan the whole area is on terrorist alert, and you are constantly being monitored.

There were 50 gun crime deaths in Britain last year (population 60 million) and 750 murders (the murder rate is falling here btw) compared with 8,000 gun crime deaths in America and 17,000 murders. There were 170 murders in London last year, compred to around 550 in NY.

America has five times the population, but if it had the UK's gun crime figures, the US would only have 250 gun deaths a year and around 4000 murders.

As for the robbery rise it mainly related to kids stealing other kids, ipods and mobile phones,
each one being recorded by the Metropolitan Police so they can get a crime number and go
to the insurance company and get a new phone. The fact is these figures have been massively increased by kids claiming their phones were stolen, getting a crime number and then claiming on insurance to get a more up to date phone. Fortunately the police are becoming more wise to this and have started prosecuting.

In NY property crime under $500 is a misdemeanor and not counted in felony figures, again London counts everything, and even counts one crime as multiple crimes.

Oh and it's best not to use articles with Joyce Lee Malcolm, as most of her assumptions are idiotic and have no bearing on UK Society.

Firstly guns aren't banned in Britain, only automatic weapons and handguns, we still have rifle clubs, shotguns and hunting, and the shooting industry is a major money earner running in to billions of pounds.

Secondly prior to the handgun ban (pre-Dunblane) only 50,000 people owned handguns in the UK, and there were strict controls regarding how they should be stored and where they could be used, there certainly was no concealed carry.

Thirdly the British Crime Survey (the most reliable crime figures) have shown a massive decrease in violence in the last ten years, as have figures relating to hospital treatment for violent crime injuries in England and Wales.

As I have already explained the police have changed the way they count crime, they count trivial crime, and are increasingly pushed to meet targets.

If UK Police (Basic Command Unit) Management do not show enough detected and recorded crime they face budget cuts , and therefore they record as much trivial nonsense as possible in order to justify budgets.

The whole system has been criticised in a recent report, and there have been calls to scrap the system and give officers their discretion back.

Half of all violent crime in the UK involves no injury to anyone and the rest is mainly very trivial in nature.

A good website - http://www.anxietyculture.com/crimescare.htm

NY police management have the opposite problem, they are increasingly pushed to show as little crime as possible, to reclass crimes and downgrade them, to sweep them under the carpet, in order to please the City Fathers.

Finally I know both London and NY, and to be honest, I have never had a problem with crime in either city. I naturally feel safer in London, because it's my home, and I am sure most New Yorkers feel safer in their familiar home surroundings than they do in cities abroad.

[29clepayJainync]

Interesting and alarming thread.

[nvideoe]

Look. All I know is that I and many other people feel about 10 times safer in Manhattan than in Central London.

I would totally agree.

[Asianunta]

^ Times have changed, huh?

Have the British grown violent?

[flowersnewacq]

^ Times have changed, huh?
Have the British grown violent?

The British have always had a violent streak in their nature - just look at our history, but now, according to Metropolitan Police figures, foreigners are now responsible for more than one-in-five crimes committed in London.

Around a third of all sex offences and a half of all frauds in the capital are carried out by non-British citizens. The biggest offenders are the Poles, who have flooded into Britain since the 2004 expansion of the EU. They were responsible for 2,310 crimes in the first six months of this year - including 583 violent attacks and 32 sex attacks.

Romania joined the EU in January this year and its citizens are fifth on the list with more than 1,000 offences - an eightfold rise on the same period in 2006.

The figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, (the scope of which has been much reduced by our Labour government), revealed Jamaicans committed the second largest number of crimes (1,750), followed by the Irish (1,390), and Somalians (1,105).

London is a dangerous city compared to Manhattan.

[fabrizioitwloch]

London is not a violent city, did you actually read my posts regarding crime figures, as for foreigners (given 2/5th's of Londons population is foreign born) - 40% of Londons population is Foreign Born, so I should imagine one fifth of crime is committed by foreigners - there are up to a million polish now living here alone.

http://www.london.gov.uk/londoner/07...um=email-mar07

As for Manhattan, it's NY's Central Area and like the centre of London it is watched continously by cameras and police - Central London is extremely safe.

Btw I wasn't aware Manhattan was a city, it's a 22 Square Mile (Population 1.5 million) tiny island, which people here seem determined to compare to the 609 Square Miles than make up Greater London. Manhattan is a heavily guarded financial and entertainment compex and like centraL London is relatively safe with CCTV cameras and lots of police, however what about the other 6.5 million people who make up NY and the other 300 odd square miles of the city.

Out of London's 33 Boroughs, if you put together just four boroughs - Westminster, Chelsea and Kensington, Hammersmith and Fulham, plus add the Citys Square Mile (Financial District) and you have an area equal to Manhattan Island. These four boroughs had 10 murders last year, and had extremely low figures for violent crimes - even Manhattan doesn't have figures that low.

London has a lower murder rate than NY, less gun crime (there were 50 gun murders in Great Britain Last year), serious crime has fallen, and recorded crime figures are compiled differently.

*NY has a system of Felony and Midemenour - any robbery/property crime under $500 (£250) is a misdermeanor, however all property crimes are listed in London from mobile phones, ipods to petty thefts.

*NY does not count simple assaults, it only counts aggrevated assaults - assaults that result in serious injury or involve a weapon - London doesn't just count simple assaults, it counts
common assault (no injury), harrasement (no injury), Verbal Assault (no injury), of the violent crimes recorded in the UK, half involve no injury to anyone, whilst the other 50% are mainly simple assaults (black eyes, cuts, bruises etc)

*The definition of many crimes is far broader in the UK, and police targets and recording methods have inflated crime rates.

* The BCS (regarded as the most reliable crime figures by criminologists) has shown a massive decrease in violent crime rates in England and Wales, and this is backed up by hospital casualty figures provided by the NHS and published by the Violence Research Group every two
years.

[Cofeeman]

Jaeger, I live in London and you can quote all the figures you like but I know from first hand experience just how dangerous a place it is. I wouldn't believe any "official" crime stats even if they were chiselled on blocks of granite and vouched for by Archangel Gabriel himself, surrounded by a heavenly choir of harp-playing angels adorned in gossamer, floating on puffy white clouds all proclaiming they're true.

Do you live in London Jaeger? If so, where?

[Binuilienzync]

Jaeger, I live in London and you can quote all the figures you like but I know from first hand experience just how dangerous a place it is. I wouldn't believe any "official" crime stats even if they were chiselled on blocks of granite and vouched for by Archangel Gabriel himself, surrounded by a heavenly choir of harp-playing angels adorned in gossamer, floating on puffy white clouds all proclaiming they're true.

Do you live in London Jaeger? If so, where?

I live in London as well, and to be honest I have never had a problem in this city, and don't know what the hell you are talking about.

Have you even been to other cities, and not just Manhattan.

Take a city like Philadelphia with a population of 1.5 million and 360 murders last year, compared to London with a population nearing 8 million and 170 murders last year. I would rate Philadelphia is a violent city, but London is not that violent as far as major cities go.

Most big cities have a violent element, however you are making London to be something it's not, and if you had read my posts I have constantly said police recorded figures just reflect police activity and that the figures underestimate crime in NY, while over estimate crime in London.

For someone who doesn't believe in crime figures you are extremely quick to post an article
suggesting crime is due to immigrants, even though 2/5th of London's population are immigrants and they are only responsible for 1/5th of crime, which actually is half the crime rate of the native population. London is a safe city by international standards.

I suggest if you feel so fearful in London, you move somewhere else and whinge about how life is terrible there.

[SinyugiN]

I don't live in either, but NYC is denser, has more foot traffic. It's grid of streets, lack of alleys etc. hold few surprises.

I believe you can fool around a lot with statistics.... and no matter what statistics say, the night feels more secure in NYC than in London.

Also if you are used to a night out in Italy or France for instance, the Brits binge drinking problem creates an unsettling feeling for those not used to such a spectacle.

I love London, but I'll take Manhattan over London any day...or night.


---

[Adeniinteme]

I suggest if you feel so fearful in London, you move somewhere else.

Why? Should the fear of crime drive us all from our beloved homes? Do we let the criminal class who represent a small but violent minority dictate to the decent law-abiding majority? No.
Violent crime is rampant in the UK and our prisons are full. The Police no longer have a presence on our streets, they have surrendered them to the yobs as they have become increasingly tied to their desks due to bureauracy. Unfettered and uncontrolled immigration has allowed vast numbers of undesirables to enter the UK with most settling into their life of crime in our main cities. The Police are reluctant to even give you a crime number or visit the scene of the crime in many cases so its little wonder the public have lost faith in our Police. The only time most of us come in contact with the Police is when they are busy catching speeding motorists which of course puts more revenue into their pot!

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/cri...cle2710596.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m.../31/do3101.xml

As a matter of interest in what part of London do you live in Jaeger?

[WaicurtaitfuT]

Why? Should the fear of crime drive us all from our beloved homes? Do we let the criminal class who represent a small but violent minority dictate to the decent law-abiding majority? No.
Violent crime is rampant in the UK and our prisons are full. The Police no longer have a presence on our streets, they have surrendered them to the yobs as they have become increasingly tied to their desks due to bureauracy. Unfettered and uncontrolled immigration has allowed vast numbers of undesirables to enter the UK with most settling into their life of crime in our main cities. The Police are reluctant to even give you a crime number or visit the scene of the crime in many cases so its little wonder the public have lost faith in our Police. The only time most of us come in contact with the Police is when they are busy catching speeding motorists which of course puts more revenue into their pot!

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/cri...cle2710596.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/m.../31/do3101.xml

As a matter of interest in what part of London do you live in Jaeger?

Firstly I disagree with that article - we are not missing two million crimes, so the BCS neglects to interview under 16's and pensioners (this is currently being rectified), however the failure to interview under 16's and over 65's in the 50,000 people interviewed most probably means that a higher percentage of adult males are interviewed between the ages of 18-30 years of age and guess what - that male age range has the highest percentage of violent assaults against them than any other group in society.

Secondly the BCS tallies with the NHS Casaulty Figures for Violent Crime, which have shown a marked decrease since 2000 of some 20%, and are published bi-yearly by the Violence Research Group.

Thirdly there may be some crimes missing but the BCS has never claimed to be a hundred percent accurate, it is at best a guess based on the experiences of 50,000 people out of 53 million in England and Wales.

Whilst the BCS may not be 100% accurate, it is a far more accurate guide than the NYPD Figures, The FBI UCR, UK Police Recorded Crime and covers a far greater percentage of population than the American NCVS.

I have already mentioned the police target culture as a major reason for crime being inaccurate, as for not being on the streets, the police are putting neighbourhood police teams on to the streets in London and every area is to get them.

Btw all you have to do to get a crime number is usually ring metcall, and they will issue you with a crime number over the phone, which is one of the reasons the system is open to abuse.

As for serious violent crime, I would suggest it has a much better chance of being reported in the UK than most countries, as the UK has one of the best criminal injuries compensation authorities in the world, and you can claim anything from £1000 to £250,000 for injuries sustained.

https://www.cica.gov.uk/portal/page?..._schema=PORTAL

Likewise you would be stupid not to report a burglary or robbery if you ae insured and can claim goods back, and unlike NY the police here record and give a crime number to all robberies. We do not have a system where anything under $500 (£250) is not a felony, or where it's left to police to decide whether to record the incident. Crimes deemed as Midemeanors aren't usually recorded in US crime figures and are not part of NY City Figures or police crimes listed in Schedule 1 of the FBI 'Uniform Crime Reports'.

As for where I live in London - Islington.

[BeksTeene]

I don't live in either, but NYC is denser, has more foot traffic. It's grid of streets, lack of alleys etc. hold few surprises.

I believe you can fool around a lot with statistics.... and no matter what statistics say, the night feels more secure in NYC than in London.

Also if you are used to a night out in Italy or France for instance, the Brits binge drinking problem creates an unsettling feeling for those not used to such a spectacle.

I love London, but I'll take Manhattan over London any day...or night.


---

Manhattan isn't a city, it's 22 Square Mile Island, with 1.5 million population,
and is not comparable to the 609 Square Miles of Greater London with a 7.8 million population.

[klubneras]

Uh...OK...then let me change my statement:

"I love London, but I'll take New York over London any day...or night."

yeah, yeah...I know... New York is not only a city, it's also a state and Manhattan is not really a... whatever...

Listen, all I know is I feel safer there.