Express Mortgages Express Loans Bingo Lose Weight Franchising Dating Music Downloads DVD Rental Shopping Book Shop Find Spare Parts Cut Your Bills Wine Shop Legal Store FlatShare

HAVE YOUR SAY

IS LABOUR INCAPABLE OF ENSURING OUR SAFETY?

Mourners pay tribute to Ben Kinsella, should Labour be tougher on knife carriers?

Sunday July 13,2008

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(125)

LABOUR was accused of going soft on knife crime last night as beleaguered Jacqui Smith ruled out automatic jail sentences for youngsters carrying blades.

As she prepared to launch a £100million anti-knife initiative, the Home Secretary said she was determined to tackle the orgy of knife violence on Britain’s streets.

But she dismissed Tory leader David Cameron’s call for carrying a knife to mean an automatic jail term.

Ministers are relying on a raft of measures, including community sentences and forcing youngsters to meet the families of knife victims.

Fewer than one in five youngsters caught carrying a knife are jailed.

Read the whole article here...

Do YOU think this shows Labour are incapable of ensuring our safety on the streets?

HAVE YOUR SAY...

RUHE

11.08.08, 12:30pm

correct me if i am wrong, but your 'aggrivated burglary' example seems flawed to me, and i am pretty sure that now breraking and entering into the home is actyually classed and sentenced as a violent crime (even if no violence occurs) because of the potential for violence. no a rule change like that would inflate the violent crime stats, would it not? instead, you seem to be suggesting that such changes make the stats lower. this does not make sense to me.

and the BCS does contact a cross seciton of the population, that is the whole point. I think that we are in agreement that recorded crime figures are sketchy, if for no other reason than laws keep changing and therefore the measurement is not consistant or comparable with previous years (a few things, like murder rates, are the exception).

this is why the bcs was invented, and why academics, and officilas see it as the most accurate reflection of crime trends.

so, you still fail to make an adequate case for what the british crime survey, which surveys unreported crime and experience of crime through surveys and interviews of the population has continually showed decreasing crime, and that people are less likely to be the victims of crime.

so, my question still stands:

continually decreasing crime levels and experience of crime according to the BCS, yet increasing fear of crime?

how do you explain that without taking into account media scaremongering.

don't think you can.

• Posted by: LeFinDuMonde • Report Comment

LFDM

09.08.08, 2:18am

Going around in circles maybe, but never forget that discourse is the path to enlightenment. The cyclical nature of debate may point towards unyielding viewpoint, but to abandon the search of the middleground is to conceed that there is no hope for us all.

I will add my two-penneth thus;

I work with crime figures, criming standards, charging standards and the political rigeours of policing on a daily basis. It is what i am paid to do.

I can also assure you that figure massaging occurs daily. Ever heard of the offence of aggravated burglary? It has been almost wiped from the political map due to Home Office appointed criming standards that dictate the offence against the person takes priority. So should you be snug in your home, feeling safe, and then subject to a burglar seriously tooled up, you won't appear in the crime figures. You'll be classed as another street statistic. Pure and simple, the eradication of a most serious offence for the sake of half-truths. Armed robbery is recorded as an offence from being in possession of a butter knife to using a firearm. I can tell you we're averaging seven offences of fire-arm bourne armed robbery per day. This is not reflected in any crime figures.

You can also trace this back to current standards of 'one victim one offence' You could have a person who suffers a broken jaw as a result of being robbed. The same person could then have their mobile phone and wallet stolen, as well as their house keys. When they arrive home they have also been burgled. Three distinct crimes would only ever be counted as a robbery. Where once it would have been three crimes it is now one.

What is described as 'ethical' crime recording can now be seen only as 'cooking the books' People can suffer multiple offences against them but the recorded figures fail to reflect that.This is why people don't believe the figures, because they know that with the best will in the world from the police, they simply are not the true figure.

I appreciate what you say about the BCS, but you have to take a requisite sample across the community to get a true picture.

This can be highlighted by the constant statement from the government that we have the highest prison population in Europe. In every 1000 court appearances British courts sentence 17 people to custodial sentences. Look at Spain that figure is 80 in every 1000. Who is putting more people in jail?

When tagged early release was introduced in 2000 reoffending counted for 1 in 20 offences. In 2007 this rate was 1 in 9- does that mean that crime has gone up or that people are more readily becoming hardened and repeat offender?

Be under no illusion that there can be the least amount of recorded crime in history and people will not feel safe. Not when those offenders are care-free enough to use escalatng violence and weaponary to carry out those offences and still be likely candidates for early release.

• Posted by: ruhe03 • Report Comment

RUHE

08.08.08, 12:53pm

the other thread is off now, but i did manage to find and read your message.

we could go around in circles all day with you saying you think crime figures are massaged, and me saying that they are better than 'opinion'. however, i would in this case point you to the british crime survey, which, is consistent in its measurement (unlike police recorded crime figures which, as you point out, get changed when the laws or procedures get changed).

that is one reason the BCS was invented. to provide ocnsistent data. furthermore, it, through the use of interviews and surveys, attempts to measure unreported crime by looking at personal experience as well as crime figures. thus it is considered the most accurate measurement available.

The BCS reports are consistent in thier reading that crime has dropped. not just in recorded crime. but in personal experience of crime of their sample populations.

however, they continually report that 'perceptions' of crime are increasing. so, less recorded crime. less personal experience of crime.. yet more perception that crime is increasing? how can you explain that apart from media hype?

now, i would like to tackle your point here:

"Law enforcement is the easiest job in the world- no really it is. However that has been made much harder by this government's insistance of introducing half-baked and rushed through legislation when all that was required was for them to think things through."

--couldn't agree more. but what are the roots of this? i would argue that it is caving in to media fuelled public pressue. the government is put in a position of having to respond to a 'problem' (the 'epidemic of crime') that does not particualrly exist!

you can see the cabinet meetings:

"everybody is on us to do something about crime..."

"so what is going in, what are the figures like?"

"well, pretty much all the figures are down actually, so whatever we are doing at the moment, it does seem to be working"

"hmmm... well the public want action... we have to be seen to be doing something, maybe a gimmik like community police officers will shut them up"

"ok then, if it'll get the papers off our back, we'll give it a try".

--so yes, i agree that more thought is needed. knee-jerk reactions to media scaremongering are pointless, and do more harm than good. it is not good for policy, and it is not good for the quality of life of people.

(incidentially, it kind of reminds me of the accusation of the england football team as being 'impossible to manage' because of the demands and interference of the british media. however, there the fundamental difference is that england continually put in sub-par performances, whereas crime has been continually falling.)

• Posted by: LeFinDuMonde • Report Comment

LFDM

06.08.08, 8:40pm

I replied on the other thread, it seemed most sense seeing as i'd missed this reply the night before.

• Posted by: ruhe03 • Report Comment

AS A REPEAT POINT

06.08.08, 1:41pm

that is my point though. the trend is down and has been for some time. despite this, tabloids have been arguing the reverse far before these lates stats came out. and even then, despite the police themselves saying the overall trend is down, what do they do? apply a meaningless or contextless figure and blow it all out of proportion.

for (hypothetical) example: 'there have been a staggering 300 deaths by knife crime in 2007, leading to an epidemic of knife crime".
--pointless, there could have been 400 the previous year. and of course, this is what was happening all the time.

now of course, it is 'murders up 3% on the previous year"... no mention that the previous year was an all time low. and that the previous 8 years showed significant drops.

it is irresponsible journalism.

now, you seem to drift into the idea of 'how people feel', and yes, many people mistakenly believe that crime is getting worse, even 'out of control'. it is blatantly not. but the problem is, that thanks to tabloid misinformation, people think it is, and call on the government to further restriuct our freedoms and turn this country into a police state.

not good.

and of course, it has been proven time and time again that the more police you hire, and the more laws you make, the more crime there is to be reported. if you are obsessed with crime, you will continually find more of it.

so ultimately, none of this will make anyone feel any better. we will continue to lose our freedoms over nothing.

thus, we are better off dealing with the truth, rather than creating fear, then catering to those fears.

• Posted by: LeFinDuMonde • Report Comment

RUHE

05.08.08, 1:21pm

Spurious claims? Even the governmental lap-dog that is the BBC shows the same figures (related to total recorded crime over previous 12 months) as what i have stated. Check the word 'spurious' in the dictionary and come back to me with the answer.

--if you had bothered to actually read and understand my post, you will see that i acknowledged that 'massive' 3% increase over last year.
--obviously, you missed the point. last year muderers were at an all time low within recent memory. so, a three percient rise on an all time low is hardly an epidemic.
the data i showed you show, to concentrate on murders for a second, an OVERALL trend downward. this is what you fail to understand or acknowledge. if we comapre murders (or any other crime for that matter) there is much less now than there was ten years ago. the trend for murders and all forms of violent crime is down. having a small increase in a couple of things one year does not effect this.

--if you come back in another three years and can show proof that, say murders have been going up more than down in that time, then you might have something noteworthy to say. however right now, you are feebling trying to capitalise on a small increase from a record low year, and trying to pretend there is a trend there that there is not.

--this is especially relevant when you consider:

1. the rise in the populaton over the last decade. (larger population theoretically should mean more murders and violent crimes)

2. the current large number of people in their late teens (the people most likely to be involved in violent confrontations)

--thus, the point i made, and make again, that the trend downward in all forms of crime, including violent crime and murder, is notable.

"Where have i said that violent crime was up? I stated that you're more likely to be murdered OR involved with a knife. "

--another assertin you make which is not actually true, as the BCS has shown. as well as the trend in both reported crime and bcs figures.

"I'm not entirely sure that you understand the true magnitude of crime reporting and how crimes are actually recorded. '

--oh, i think i do, which is why i know that the British Crime Survey is the most accurate picture of crome, as it attempts to measure unreported crime as well as reported crime. it also measures 'perceptions' of crime. which has gone up, largely because of ridiculous media hype such as the above article. you would seem to be a victim of that as well.

"I also note the fact that you're using date 06-07 rather than the lastest available figures of 07-08. "

--and once again, you note wrongly. If you had read and understood the last post, you would see the 2007/2008 murder rates.

--furthermore, your ramblings about knife crime are misguided, as it is only this year that 'kife crime' has been categorised as a seperate, so it is impossible to espablish a trend. athough the centre form criminal justice has attempted to measure past trends on existing data, and suggest that it has remained level. however, the proportion of murders committed with knives has gone up, becasue the amount of murders have gone down, and the amount of firearms related murders have gone down.

--next time, i suggest you actually read and understand a post before responding to one. although i do acctually appreciate someone on here who at least attempts to use evidence and logic to make a point. it is a refreshing change.

--as for you comment about public order offenses. i am sure that you are well aware how much those laws have changed over the past few years, with more and more new crimes being invented that people can be charged with, inflating those figures. trying to ascertain a trend amongst that mess will not be possible for a long time.