Representations of Crime: Part 3

Crime, specifically violent crime, is back the media spotlight with Channel 4's slightly misjudged Disarming Britain Season (a little bit OTT on the moral urgency). A few high profile killings (here and here) have added to the current media focus. It's an emotive issue. For example, in an otherwise reasonably informative article, the BBC News Home affairs editor makes light of the statistics involved with reported stabbings and shootings. In short, shootings are down by 28%, whilst stabbings are up by 88%, from 95 cases to 179 reported annually. There are also regional variations - more being shot in Manchester, more being stabbed in London. But as it's also a Have Your Say column, have a look at what people are saying. As ever, it ranges from the interesting to the genuinly insane. Clearly the statistics showing complex patterns and no general rise of crime is not something that many people have much faith in.

In a study by Barclay, Tavares and Sidique in 2001 International Comparsons of Criminal Justice showed that, in fact, that London as a capital between 1990-99 had a fairly average homicide rate of between 2.2-2.5 per 100,000 (Belfast ranged between 5.23-18.5; Amsterdam 3.7-8.4l; Rome 1.22-2.9). In those years there was no discernable rise in the murder rate. In Micheal Levi and Mike Maguire's contribution to The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 3rd edition, they list the following statistics;

• From 1981-1995, domestic violence more than trebled, mugging rose by half;
• For the period 1995-2000, the rate of recorded violence fell by more than a third
• Between the years 1998/9 and 2000/01, recorde violence has risen by 500,000 reports per year to 600,000 per year. Of this increase, 70,000 are offences of 'common assault', 'assault on a constable' and 'harrassment'. (page 810, Oxford Handbook of Criminology)
  

So here we have conflicting information, showing violence both increasing and decreasing for the same period. Here is evidence if ever you needed it not to place too much faith in statistics!

That said, if you abandon statistics, you are leaving yourself wide open to believe any old rubbish. One of my favourite anecodotes in relation to the fear of crime and the popular response to it comes from the end of the C18th. A Middlesex magistrate called Patrick Colquhoun, who in fact created a forerunner of the Met Police, decided at one point in his career that crime and degenerating morals were rising amongst the lower and working classes. He stated the cause of this was 'bawdy' ballad singers in pubs. He urged the government to suppress these singers, and promote more 'wholesome' ones in their place - essentially, replace Peter Docherty with Cliff Richard, and expect to see crime disappear overnight.

Gin Lane by William Hogarth

Today we would view the idea that 'bawdy' singers being responsible for the increase in later C18th crime as ridiculous. But are we not making similar judgments ourselves all the time? Read through the comments of the HYS column above, and you can see that we still seem still very much in love with the idea of a simple, intuitively reached solution to a highly complex problem.

As for me, the more I read, the more experienced I become, the more I understand - the less I seem to know! Statistics are only as good as the questions asked and the terms defined in each survey. But I'd probably trust some statistics over my own intuition. All of which leads me to the following conclusion: I won't be out of a job any time soon! ;-)