Crime stats

You have perhaps felt that, over the last ten years, violent crime has been rising. Even if you haven't been a victim, or even witnessed it for yourself, you read the papers and watch the news, and there certainly seem to be a lot more incidents of mindless aggression, or where people seem prepared to use violence where before they would not. People battered to death for challenging yobs in the street. Minor robberies that now require shopkeepers to be clubbed to death. Guns used routinely, and seemingly without remorse. I have certainly felt that way.

We have been told, over and over again, that the crime statistics show a remarkable decline in violent crime, and that those who said otherwise were stoking a national moral panic. Claims of a 'broken society' were Tory propaganda, and easily refuted by reference to the official statistics. The methods of counting have been so various, and changed so often, that almost any position could be argued from the statistics. But now someone has done the maths and, lo and behold, violent crime is getting worse.

So what we have all felt for years is actually true. All those cosy figures about how we are now safer than ever before thanks to an enlightened Government with effective policies against crime were just manipulation and spin.

If the Government tells you something that doesn't feel right, trust your instincts.