When it comes to UK crime figures, the data spivs know every trick in the book

November 21st 2009

After economic and fiscal data, there are no autistic statistics Prime Minister Gordon Brown loves to spout more than those relating to crime. With so few successes to his name, the Trouser Snake loves to make the most of an area of government where, it seems, his Party is making headway.

For the first time, this nby special feature examines all the ways in which crime can be cut by a third on paper....and still be heading through the roof in Cruel Britannia.

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Fiddling crime statistics is as easy as burgling a house undetected. And there are, broadly, four ways you can do it.

Number one. Don't bring charges against the villain.

This from the BBCNews website on 22.10.09:

'In the latest review of recorded police incidents it has been identified that many violent crimes are being recorded under the heading of "No Crime".

Although the findings are based on investigations in just a small sample of the UKs police forces, it is believed that as many as 33% of violent crimes nationwide are being misclassified. 

It appears that the violent crimes in question that are being classified as "No Crimes", are those where no charges are brought against the perpetrator. It is however obviously misleading to classify a violent attack where the victim ends up requiring stitches as a No Crime - after all it did happen, and someone was injured!'

There are various levels to this practice, but the prime suspects here are the Crown Prosecution Service and the various Ministers, Bankers and Civil servants who've been wasting public money more than usual of late. Sources in the Devon & Cornwall police force told nby last month that with each CPS case costing an average of £10,000, there is a blanket rationing regime in place.

Thus - knowing this in advance - most police officers attempt to talk the public out of taking the matter further. (The exact parallel exists in primary medical care, where GPs overtly stonewall on consultant referrals). In April 2008, the Evening Standard quoted a damning Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) report as follows:

'...some parts of the force have adopted "local policies" to create "obstacles stopping victims reporting certain crime types". For example, some police stations refuse to allow victims of mobile phone theft to report the crime unless they can quote the phone's IMEI serial number, 15 digits which can only be found by typing a special code into the handset....'

Caught out yet again at its fiddlework, the Government did the indecent thing: it promised to have a review of the practice. Ah yes, that old scam.

Number Two. Decide that an obviously committed crime is not a crime any more.

As a UK citizen, you have the right to have your statement about an alleged crime taken at a police station, and 'reviewed'. This used to mean 'acted upon', but today it's code for 'fob the punter off'.

Like tens of thousands of others, I've been around these houses and up various garden paths myself. In my case, the force sat on the file for two months. Eventually - embarassed by the ever-escalating scenes associated with my demands at the local nick - Detective Inspector Mundy of the Devon & Cornwall force opined that my statement contained 'no actionable criminal behaviour'.

What Mundy didn't know was that for the exact same offence of email harassment, a neighbour of mine had already managed to get the perpetrator cautioned.

Sending two or more abusive and threatening emails is an offence, period. There are no two ways about it. But Detective Inspector Munday has reviewed the clues in this case (the perpetrator's name and email address being on the photocopied messages, for example) and decided there is no case to answer - even though there quite clearly is.

The criminal involved in this case is a serial fraudster and violent thug. In our small town alone, those of us not in the police force (but trying to get the man convicted) estimate he should face some eleven charges ranging over the last six years.

One case in one tiny seaside town. Extrapolate that nationwide, and one can see why the crime figures for this country are a sick joke. London Mayoral candidate Brian Paddick confirmed this last year after having sight of a Met Report on under-recording:

"This report is clear evidence of what I have been saying all along - that police-recorded crime statistics don't reflect the true picture."

Finally - and disturbingly - it looks like the public are catching on. Trust in the police has been falling steadily for years, but the IpsosMori poll of November 2009 showed a year-on-year drop of 5%...to just 60%.

Thus, while 9 out of 10 people still believe doctors, only 3 in 5 believe what the police say. This, truly, is the wages of spin.

Number Three. Stick some of the sensitive crimes under another heading.

Ultimately, how any crime gets recorded is down to the officers in any police station or region. As long ago as 1996 (says the Guardian) an enquiry into records fraud in the Nottinghamshire force

'...found that in the previous year, when Notts police claimed to have recorded a fall of 7,788 offences, the reality was that officers had hidden 9,175 offences in secret databases which were designed to evade the official figures...'

In no way is this an isolated case...or a practice that has died out. In July 2000, HM Inspector of Police discovered widespread evidence throughout Britain that violence had been put down as public disorder, burglary as criminal damage. A source involved in policing the Midlands told nby last Spring that these two are

"...still the favourites. None of this is difficult. Quite often the senior ranks will tell you what should go where."

A year ago, the Times online reported that violent crime had been under-reported by 20%

'At first the Home Office said that as many as 17 forces had been wrongly categorising grievous bodily harm with intent where there was no injury – crimes in which the perpetrator meant to cause serious injury but was prevented from doing so – but later the police said it affected all forces'

In the light of London MPA report (see earlier) then-candidate for Mayor Boris Johnson said:

"It is unacceptable that our honest officers are made to effectively shove reported crime under the carpet."

The Guardian concluded (correctly in my view):

'...there are many [senior police] who succumb to the pressure and who pass it on to the junior officers, who are expected to break the rules to satisfy them.'

Number Four. Deliberately massage certain definitions.

This is a similar practice to the one above, except that in this instance senior civil servants are the truth-benders. They were caught at this one by the Tories last December, when knife crime managed to get under-reported because mandarins decided on a very narrow interpretation of 'knife'.

Conservative researchers went back to the data and found that 'all stabbings' gave a much higher figure. It showed, in fact, that such crime had risen 38% in a year.

But the practice is most commonly centred on white collar and City 'technology' crime. In such a complex and jargon-ridden area, one man's internet crime is another man's fraud. One Home Secretary's theft is a journalist's embezzlement. And so on.

You name it - when it comes to crime figures, it's going on. With a sweep of his hand, Gordon Brown declares that New Labour has cut crime by a third: but he knows perfectly well that they haven't done anything of the sort. Politics has been in Never-Never Land for many years now, but the idea that falling crime rates and prison overcrowding at crisis levels can exist side by side is something even Jonathan Swift couldn't have dreamt up.

Crime in Britain is massively under-reported and widely misrecorded. Lack of money, Ministerial dishonesty, political pressure and senior officer agendas all combine to ensure that in 2009, the citizen literally cannot trust any statistics on the subject. New Labour's 'tactic' in this grubby context is to simply keep on repeating the same lies over and over....but mendacious politcians are nothing new. Senior policemen colluding in the fiction for their own advancement is another matter entirely.

Our policemen are being rapidly politicized at all levels and via never-ending pc madness. If they are at the same time corrupt and ambitious, it can only end in tears.

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