Civitas

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January 05, 2005

The Prime Minister is not pleased

In an interview last night, the Prime Minister referred to a recently published book. He said that it ignored the national crime statistics that show an overall drop in crime. The only book about crime that was being extensively discussed in the national press and radio at the time was Civitas's, Cultures and Crimes: Policing in Four Nations.

I don't think that, just because I am a faithful member of the Labour party (and have been for far longer than him), Mr Blair will expect that he can misrepresent my purely factual research with impunity, and that I won't answer back.

Beyond statistical matters: though I have a deep sense of inferiority to the Prime Minister in every other respect, I don't feel I'm greatly inferior to him in my direct knowledge of what 'traditional Labour voters' have believed, have valued and what they now experience.

Far from ignoring it, I put the recent overall drop in crime at the heart of of my book.

The total number of crimes rose precipitously from 1955 to 1995. The steep rise was confirmed by the British Crime Survey figures from 1981 to 1995 (blowing the whole of the "moral panic" school out of the water).

From the mid-1990s strenuous efforts were made by ordinary householders and businesses to protect their property. People stayed away from black spots. Car manufacturers installed ingenious security devices. The overall number of crimes fell. That's an essential message of the book.

But where the reduction in the numbers depended upon effective policing, crimes continued to rocket. The national crime figures on robberies that go back beyond 1981 tell their own story.

1954 800
1964 3,000
1974 9,000
1984 24,000
1994 60,000
2003/04 101,000 (of which 91,000 were robberies of personal property, "street crime")

There were 121,000 robberies at the peak of 2001/02, and the number was down to 101,000 by 2003/04. I do not ignore that fact in the book. I highlight it.

Of course the Prime Minister is strictly right. The book does ignore falls in crime that have taken place--since the book was finished. But the implication of his remark is, that when still later figures are published, they will adversely affect the historical and cultural context of the book's findings.To be kind to him, that's not at all likely.

If the Prime Minister was referring to some other book, this posting does not apply.

Posted by at January 5, 2005 05:44 PM

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