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

[davidnm.livejournal.com]

It's the usual cognitive error thing: people are biased to remember the negative (e.g. the one day your wallet gets nicked, versus the rest of the year when it doesn't type thing), I suppose.

The other thing the Daily Mail and co. often skip is the 'relative' rates of crime. If you look at the murder rate per million people (the one that reflects the chances of it actually happening to you), then that's actually been falling steadily for the last 800 years. Progress for you, I suppose.

[tiredstars.livejournal.com]

So what you're saying is that the amount of crime is going up because population is going up. And population is going up because of immigration, which means IMMIGRANTS CAUSE CRIME!