LFDm

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.

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