British crime stats: the numbers are falling, you know that, right?

[matgb]

Right, I'm off home and then probably into Westminster, but before I go, greyarea:

One of my biggest bugbears are people - generally fairly rational people in most ways - who bleat on about how the UK is going to shit, how it's not like it was in the old days, how there's no respect for anyone any more. Proof for this is normally that crime is shooting up; you can barely leave your house without some hoodie kicking your head in, and once you make it back from A&E you'll probably find your house burgled and your car missing. And a big shit in the middle of the carpet.

There's huge disagreement on how to handle this massive rise, of course, but the fact that there is a rise is almost universally agreed on.

Except - well, crime isn't actually going up. Overall, crime has been dropping for over a decade. Chances of being burgled are through the floor, as is vehicle crime.

It comes complete with links, sources and explanations of the falling crime numbers, well worth a good read.

Comments

[anisiriusmagus.livejournal.com]

Firstly, hello! I'm one of the number of people who has added you to my f-list recently. I have been thinking about it for, oh, a few months. Pretty much since snapesbabe started mentioning you on her LJ, and we've known each other since around February 2002. I'm just shy, and procrastinate a lot, so I haven't added you sooner.

On the subject of crime, I guess it's like a lot of things, scare mongering makes the general public who can't be bothered to do the actual research think that things are worse than they actually are. Yorksher is a very nice place to be (I used to live in Ehssix until two years ago) and in my little corner, the crime rate is very low.

[matgb]

Hi, yeah, I have enought plugins to let me track my friends fairly easily, it just took me a bit longer to catch up this time. I haven't had time to backread, but cool. I won't even hold Essex-ness against you ;-)

Soon after I moved up here, I had my car parked on a side street, didn't go near it for two weeks.

When I moved it back onto the driveway, realised the passenger door had never been locked. Wimbledon's not bad for crime either it seems...

[anisiriusmagus.livejournal.com]

I won't even hold Essex-ness against you ;-)


That's very kind of you. I'm glad I don't have a strong Ehssix accent, and I'm doing my best to acquire a slight Yorksher one, which is far better, IMHO. I can honestly say I have no intention of ever going back to the place of my birth, especially now most of my family have moved up here too. Just my sister to go now, and she's planning to move up here around next April.