Bystander has an excellent post ripping apart the stupid Times article which claimed that one in 10 London teenage boys had carried a gun.
"The headline suggested that up to a million kids have gone about tooled up, and the reality is that a few hundred, or even a couple of thousand teenage boys have claimed to be dead hard – probably even more claimed to have shagged Billie Piper".
The thing which really annoys me, though, is the opposition’s reaction. Obviously, the study is a nasty piece of lying Blairy spin designed to bolster the halfwitted Violent Crime Reduction Bill, so the government are right behind it. But why couldn’t David Davis or Mark Oaten say "this is an insidious piece of misleading propaganda produced by Tony Blair in a desperate attempt to scare people into supporting him"? Are the public really stupid enough to believe we have a serious violent crime problem?
Sadly, yes.
Weird leap of logic at the end there, John. Regardless of whether that study’s shit, we do have a serious violent crime problem.
Balls. We have a serious "people lying that there’s a violent crime problem and other people falling for it" problem, but that’s hardly the same thing.
Specifically: BCS violent crime is falling a bit at the moment, and has been since the mid 1990s. Recorded violent crime is rising, but of course that tells us about policing, not crime. Homicides, on the other hand, are increasing in number and have been since the early 1960s. I understand that reported firearms offences are rising but I don’t know whether there’s any data on the actual prevalence of firearms or offences involving firearms. Anecdotally there are supposed to be lots more guns in circulation, but the absence of any — even estimated — numbers in this NCIS piece on the threat of gun crime in the UK suggests that there are no hard data to back that up.
"I don’t know whether there’s any data on the actual prevalence of firearms or offences involving firearms." — note also, "Overall, firearms were only used in one per cent of violent incidents. This is a consistent f inding f rom previous survey results" from this BCS piece on violent crime.
Note also that the BCS excludes under-16s from its survey of victims, and while another survey has been introduced to cover offences against children, it only started last year and so can’t be used to find a trend.
Six times more likely to be mugged in London than New York.
Home invasions used to be a small minority of burglaries but are now the majority.
Sources?
Six times more likely to be mugged in London than New York.
But this factoid is entirely a result of a movement in the New York crime rate (due to vast spending on police), not the London crime rate.
More to the point ‘carrying a gun’ refered to a gun or imitation gun. I think about 30-40% (totally made of stats) of us probably played Cowboys and Indians when we were small, ergo I carried a gun……
Yes, that’s right: they recognised that they had a serious crime problem, so fixed it. We have not fixed ours, hence still have a problem.
No idea what the sources are, I’m afraid. I am cursed with a good memory for facts and figures, so frequently know things without being able to remember where I know them from. If I recall correctly, Ken Livingston has corroborated that New York is safer than London, though I have no idea whether he said by what degree.
On "home invasions" I think your factoid is misleading. The phrase "home invasion" is ambiguous; it is used both to mean an armed robbery on domestic premises (the scary version) and also used (IMO misleadingly) to refer to any burglary during which the householder is present – even "distraction burglaries" or thefts by children from their parents.
The "majority" figure only refers to householder-present burglaries, not any kind of "home invasion" which could be sensibly described as a violent crime. I don’t believe that householder-present burglaries have ever been a "small minority" of burglaries in the UK; I suspect that home invasions always have been and still are.
"home invasion" = the "homicide bomber" of the 80s, a fairly meaningless term used by rightwing people to excite themselves. And the "London is more dangerous than New York" meme is silly: it relies for impact on the popular notion that anything American must be terribly big and exciting and dangerous, when (and here I go with the factoids) New York City is the safest district in the US.
Everyone knows, but a lot of people don’t internalise, that the recording methodology for violent crimes changed dramatically in 1998, when common assaults (ie incidents of violence in which nobody got hurt) were recorded for the first time. As minor pushing and shoving outside pubs accounts for a sizable majority of violent incidents (a scientific fact for which I have no evidence at all, but (Dr. Fox mode engaged) it is a scientific fact) the supposed rise in violent crime is a case for the Department of Bad Stats.
Annoyingly, the US gun lobby has taken to attributing the nonexistent crime wave to the handguns legislation of the same year, without (needless to say) letting slip that the series isn’t comparable between pre- and post 1998 figures.
Or as HG Wells put it: in the future, an understanding of statistics will be as important as the ability to read and write.
"Dr. Fox mode engaged" – bang that nail home!
> also used (IMO misleadingly) to refer to any burglary during which the householder is present – even … thefts by children from their parents.
Bloody hell. I didn’t know that. I bloody hate statisticians.
> "home invasion" = the "homicide bomber" of the 80s, a fairly meaningless term used by rightwing people to excite themselves.
Not that meaningless. It means a burglary during which the burglee is present. As well you know.
> And the "London is more dangerous than New York" meme is silly: it relies for impact on the popular notion that anything American must be terribly big and exciting and dangerous
Bollocks. It’s a reference to the fact that New York was dangerously crime-ridden in the 1980s. New York fixed its problem; London didn’t. It shows that we don’t have to just put up with violent crime; it’s not just part of living in a metropolis; it’s not a non-serious problem that we needn’t bother about.
> the recording methodology for violent crimes changed dramatically in 1998
Which, as we all know, explains the dramatic rise in violent crime since 1950.
Which, as we all know, took place in a pre-handgun ban environment, rather bearing out the point. Your arguments are up mixed all together; we face a Desperate Immediate Crime Crisis, but it’s been going on since 1950, evil home invaders are everywhere but are also sometimes children stealing from their parents…
It’s a reference to the fact that New York was dangerously crime-ridden in the 1980s. New York fixed its problem; London didn’t. It shows that we don’t have to just put up with violent crime; it’s not just part of living in a metropolis; it’s not a non-serious problem that we needn’t bother about.
Indeed, it’s a reference to the popular memory of America, and NYC in particular, as a place of sirens and gunfire and dangerous black people, an image strongly associated with that period. It’s arguable whether New York fixed its problem, or whether larger forces were at work. For example, the great bull market of the mid-80s to 2001 pumped wealth into the city and made it too expensive for minor criminals and the poor they victimise to live there. One little remarked on factor of the 80s street-crime phenomenon was the record high gold price. I’m not going to express a view on Freakonomics‘s theory that a generation of criminals were aborted, but it’s not actually stupid or trivial. Socioeconomic trends have a habit of drowning public policy; just look how hard it is to stop suburban sprawl, despite planning codes and such.
As far as I can make out, you basically argue for "What Michael Winner Said" as a leitmotif of policy; loads more cops, loads more draconian legislation, loads more prisons, loads more guns, loads more CCTV. This has serious costs, and if it is meant to be a response to a "crisis" it’s very relevant indeed that of two metrics we have, one changed methodology dramatically in 1998 and agrees with you, and the other, that didn’t change and is comparable over time, is going the other way.
And, I should point out, you’ve got a Goodhart problem: the more cops you hire, the more crimes out of the total committed will get recorded, and presumably you will call for more cops until some taxation-related constraint hits.
It’s certainly fair enough to note that New York has a particularly low crime rate for a US city, on cities of over 1m it’s the lowest, of the 32 above 500k it’s 5th. London would be just outside the top ten, and it’s much bigger than most of them. Other British cities of that size would be a bit higher up.
I think the Economist pointed out that New York really should never had had such a high crime rate, there are many things in its favour to have a low crime rate.
I should add that you can’t really compare international crime statistics that well, so London’s ranking should be taken as illustrative not definitive.
"the supposed rise in violent crime is a case for the Department of Bad Stats" — yep.
That said, the reason for the rise in the homicide rate in the UK remains a mystery, to me at least. Does anyone have any insight into how much of it is the result of more comprehensive reporting, i.e. whether there were in the past deaths which were not reported as homicide which were they to occur now would be so reported?
I meant to write such a post when we last discussed this aeons ago. Indeed, I might look into that again for my next Sharpener effort…
Alex,
You think you’re responding to me, but it’s actually the voices in your head.
> Your arguments are up mixed all together; we face a Desperate Immediate Crime Crisis
I said we have a violent crime problem. The words "desperate", "crisis", and "immediate" are yours.
> evil home invaders are everywhere …
Nope, I didn’t say that either. I was talking about the proportion of burglars, and burglars are not everywhere, so a proportion of them are in even less bits of everywhere.
… but are also sometimes children stealing from their parents
Interesting: you’ve interpreted "I didn’t know that" as "That’s absolutely correct and fair and I stand by it."
> you basically argue for "What Michael Winner Said" as a leitmotif of policy
Do I? Which policy am I arguing for in this thread, then? As far as I can see, I haven’t proposed or opposed a single policy. But perhaps you know better. I’m probably not clever enough to read my own writing, and I have the added disadvantage of not hearing the voices in your head. Since you "ask", though….
> loads more cops …
… is something I oppose; we already have too many …
> … loads more draconian legislation …
… I also oppose; we have far too much legislation, and most of it needs to be rolled back, especially the recent ill-thought out crap …
> … loads more prisons …
… depends on the number of prisoners, which in turn should depend on the number of prosecutions, which should depend on the number of criminals; the governmental practice of setting a target for the prison population regardless of the crime rate I find bizarre …
> … loads more guns …
… it’s not the number of guns, but who owns them; I support the right to bear arms, but suspect that most British people would not exercise that right …
> … loads more CCTV.
I also oppose.
So, if I’m generous, you’ve correctly guessed maybe three-quarters of a policy. Well done.
Oops: another italical error. Sorry.
I’d say that 4.1% experiencing a violent incident, in which half of them were injured at all, about the same rate as it was twenty five years ago, is an absolute crime wave personally, oh yes, oh yes.
http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page63.asp
Oh, look what http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/Page54.asp tells us: overall crime is actually at about the same rate as it was twenty five years ago too. Wouldn’t have thought that would you?
Just in case you wondered, go to the Home Office website, search for ‘British Crime Survey trends’.
Oh, and according to this PDF – http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb1203.pdf – two years ago, our homicide rate was about a quarter of that in the US, as was London’s in relation to New York’s. A little persistence should find you more detailed stats if you want them.
Home Office stats? Gosh. You mean the same organisation that has promised, year after year, to deliver low crime rates has produced reports showing low crime rates? Astonishing. One can’t help but wonder why, when they have so much success, they keep promising to reverse the increasing crime rate. Surely that promise was fulfilled years ago.
Oh, look:
At the beginning of this century (1900-04) the total number of
crimes recorded by the police in the whole of England and Wales ran
at an annual average of just over 84,000. The rate was 258 per 100,000
population. At the beginning of the 1990s the number of crimes
recorded by the police in a twelve-month period in one district of
one city, the West End of Newcastle upon Tyne, was 13,500. The rate
was one in three of the residents — 33,000 per 100,000.
….
If we take the figure for armed robbery, an offence the growth of
which in the statistics could not be significantly accounted for by
changes in reporting (more telephones, for example) and recording
(changes in the law, changes in police procedures), we see that it was
such a small problem that no figures were generally published until
twenty years ago. In 1970 there were 480 armed robberies. By 1990
there were 3,900, and this rose in the following year to 5,300. This
was an eleven-fold increase on 1970, and the increase in the single
year was three times the total in 1970. If we consider the total
number, and not the rate of all cases of robbery, armed or not, the
rise in England and Wales in the twelve months from 1990 to 1991
was two-and-a-half times all cases of robbery recorded in the entire
period between the two world wars.
You are aware that the Home Office can also produce statistics which prove that ID cards will stop terrorism, right?
No, they haven’t – that’s part of the problem. They’ve just asserted that ID cards will stop terrorism, without even *trying* to back that up with evidence or analysis.
Overall, it looks like since 1980 crime overall has risen then fallen back to its original rate (peaking in 1995, then falling over the last 10 years). The only examples to the contrary are cherrypicked examples of very rare crimes like homicide and armed robbery. The latter is a particularly dodgy example to use, since rates apparently fell by 1/3 between 1991-94 (here. I’m aware it’s not a great source, but recorded crime stats don’t break out armed robbery so this is the best I can find…)
(actually, another thing I need to do in my Sharpener post on homicide is come up with a convincing breakdown between homicides where the victim was a member of a drug gang, and ones where s/he wasn’t – the former are a substantial proportion of the total, and a rise in this figure is rather less worrying for a member of the general public than a rise in the latter figure…)
> No, they haven’t
I know; that’s why I said that they can, not that they have. And I’m sure they can, if they twist the right figures the right way. Lies, damn lies, and all that, is all I meant to imply there.
> cherrypicked examples of very rare crimes like homicide and armed robbery
Or, as above, a cherrypicked example like the total number of recorded crimes.
Anyway, what are you saying here? That, because homicide is rare, changes in its rate of occurrence are meaningless? It may be rare, but it’s also (a) a hell of a lot less rare than it used to be and (b) exceedingly important. That the death penalty was rare was not an argument against its abolition.
No, just that your chances of being murdered were sod-all 40 years ago and are still sod-all, whereas the recent fall (and previous rise) in the rate of burglary directly impacts your and my everyday lives.
Chris Lightfoot asks :-
"Does anyone have any insight into how much of it is the result of more comprehensive reporting, i.e. whether there were in the past deaths which were not reported as homicide which were they to occur now would be so reported? "
I don’t have any insight, but my instinct suggests that in the 40s & 50s Shipman wouldn’t have been nicked, and those (215?) deaths wouldn’t have been "murders".
John Bodkin Adams was far more conspicuous and he got off.
Yeah, that’s a possibility. But Shipman was quite an extreme case; the interesting question is how many similar cases there are. I suppose the way to do this is to look at inquest results in the case of today’s homicide victims and see how many of the findings would have differed if attitudes, medical knowledge or technology had been at their earlier levels. Not sure if that can be done in any reasonably sensible way, though.
"Or, as above, a cherrypicked example like the total number of recorded crimes" — can we please kill this once and for all. The number of crimes recorded by police conveys very little information about the total number of crimes committed, and changes in the number of crimes reported even less.
If you’re talking about a few percentage points up or down from one year to the next, then recorded crime stats are not meaningful. When you’re talking about an increase from 258 per 100,000 to 33,000 per 100,000, putting it all down to changes in recording methodologies just doesn’t cut it.
What, from 258/100,000 to 33,000/100,000 over the course of a hundred years? I assume that you’ve verified that this isn’t explained by changes in numbers of police, social attitudes to crime, the creation of new criminal offences, increasing urbanisation of the population, and any number of other enormous changes that have taken place in this country since the beginning of the last century….
(also note that the 33,000 is for one dodgy bit of Newcastle – the actual figure now appears to be closer to 10,000, which implies each person reports a crime every 10 years or so, which sounds about right)