FUDGING CRIME STATISTICS IS NO WAY TO RESTORE PUBLIC CONFIDENCE

WHOOPEE!! Pass the rose coloured spex, crime is on the decrease, detections are on the increase. Or so the Government would have us believe.

Whilst the production of crime statistics remain the responsibility of the Home Office, the public faith in the Criminal Justice System will not be restored.

There are now countless examples of how this Government have manipulated the numbers to portray the impression that all in the garden is rosy.

According to research by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, trust in government Ministers to tell the truth is down from 27% (2006) to 22% (2008). Polls show politicians at the bottom of the list of professionals trusted by the public. What’s gone wrong, and what can be done about it?

At the most basic level, the Home Office has relied on the British Crime Survey to argue that violent crime has come down by 40% under this government, ignoring formal warnings by Sir David Normington, that ‘levels of the most serious violence are higher than they were ten years ago’. The BCS is an obviously poor measure of violent crime. It does not count homicide offences, rape and multiple assaults. It also excludes some of the most vulnerable victims of violence, including: the homeless, elderly people in care homes, students in digs and – until this year – all children. In fact, we know that police recorded violent crime has nearly doubled since 1997.

The Home Office clearly place great importance on the British Crime Survey (BCS), as this quote from the Home Office website confirms :-

"The BCS includes crimes which are not reported to the police, so it is an important alternative to police records. The BCS is a particularly important survey because it can provide a more complete picture of crime than police recorded crime statistics alone. The BCS includes crimes which are not reported to, or recorded by, the police and is therefore unaffected by changes in recording practices. It can provide the best guide to long-term trends in crime".

Reports from front line officers, of ridiculous levels of bureaucracy and procedure confirms what many of the public already suspect, that their effectiveness is severely impaired. This results in a lack of public confidence in the system of policing in the UK. How can the public be expected to have confidence in either BCS statistics or police recorded crime, when the BCS figures for 2008 suggest that over 10 million crimes were committed, yet the police recorded numbers amount to only 4.7 million?

Again front line officers provide an answer. They tell us that so much time is consumed recording and dealing with so many minor offences that are purely for the purposes of meeting political performance targets, that the most desired objective, providing protection where it's needed most, is the most impossible target of all to hit. This Government have introduced over 3000 new offences since arriving in office.

When Gordon Brown took office, he promised ‘a different type of politics – a more open and honest dialogue: frank about problems, candid about dilemmas’. And the reality? Back in June 2008, he responded to a planted question in Prime Minister’s Questions, by claiming ‘As far as CCTV is concerned, in the most recent experiment, in central Newcastle, CCTV reduced crime by 60 per cent’. Dig below the surface, and the study relied upon was not recent at all – but published in 1995. Whilst burglaries in central Newcastle allegedly fell by 56%, the wider area showed a fall in burglary of just 2%, whilst criminal damage and theft rose by 8%. The Prime Minister ignored as inconvenient subsequent Home Office studies (2005 and 2007) showing CCTV had ‘little overall effect on crime levels’ because 80% of CCTV footage is not fit for purpose.

THE WAY POLICE RECORD CRIME

Public access to information about crime in their local area has improved. And yet the Government still have not delivered on this promise to the full extent the public deserve.

The table below illustrates the 43 police forces of England & Wales, showing the population & households each force is responsible for, and the share of the national crime each polices.

The BCS is published in July each year detailing crime that occurred in the previous year. Six months have elapsed by the time the document goes to print. The statistics are already history, so what's a bit of manipulation and fudging here and there? The public will never know the difference, so why not exploit the opportunity to sensationalise and spin with inaccurate headlines? Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary in a recent speech, said that crime statistics are the least important part of the problem. Well, he would say that when the years of manipulation have served only to diminish public confidence still further.

Only by opening the books and exposing the real picture, will there be an opportunity for reform.

Have a look at the table. Of the 43 police forces 34 subscribe to the same analytical software that the public may view for the current crime in a particular area.

The top nine forces in the table police 41% of the population & households and a massive 48% of the nations crime. Yet these same forces are permitted, perhaps even encouraged to utilise their own software that is not as easily interrogated. The question has to be asked whether this is yet another Government strategy to make the collating of national current crime less accessible. The national picture of current crime is not easily obtained. When 48% of it is made difficult and laborious to compile, there are not many who would bother. And so, once again, the Government continues its charade of falling crime.

Click the table to see full view

Beyond the Home Office, the manipulation of government information has become endemic. The government has fiddled the figures on numbers claiming Jobseekers allowance to mask the true state of unemployment. The Treasury has disguised the level of government debt. Last year, the National Audit Office criticised the government for the way it counts carbon emissions, to overstate its record by up to 12%.

This is bad for policy-making – if you cover up the problems, how can you solve them? It also erodes public trust. Government must be much more honest about the challenges facing the country, if we are to begin to tackle them. Short-term spin must give way to proper long-term strategic thinking. That is the way to restore public confidence.

We would advocate and support the proposal to make crime statistics properly independent. This would remove responsibility for compiling and publishing crime figures from the Home Office, who clearly cannot be trusted to be truthful with the electorate and not to apply their political spin. The reposnsibility should be placed with the Office for National Statistics which is totally independent. The pre-release access that Ministers and political advisers get to crime statistics should be abolished – so the public would be the first to get an honest account of the facts. Any politician can talk about resuscitating public trust. The party that demonstrates their intentions and follows it up with decisive action that is genuinely in the public interest, will have the best chance of achieving it.

Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited

CONSERVATIVE PROMISE - IN A NUTSHELL

Following on from the rousing Conservative party conference in Manchester last week, here, in a nutshell, are a selection of observations, quotes and pledges from the speeches of David Cameron and Chris Grayling on the plans they have to reform the Criminal Justice System. 

• Criminals aren't caught because the police are stuck at desks doing paperwork.
• Violent offenders, sex offenders and heroin dealers get off with cautions because it’s the least hassle.
• Even if they go to prison, the Government releases them automatically after a fraction of their sentence to reoffend on the same streets as before.
• People think our criminal justice system is broken.
• Worrying too much about the criminals and not enough about the justice.
• It makes me furious. It makes you furious. And law abiding, decent, people are asking - who’s looking after me?
• That’s why need radical reform in every part of the system. The police. The CPS. The courts. Prisons. Probation. We need to sort it out, so there's no more excuses, no more buck-passing, no more nonsense. We need a criminal justice system that is focused on fighting crime and that is exactly what we plan to deliver.
• No one thinks that the Government’s 24 hour drinking regime has led to the creation of a “continental café culture.
• We’re not talking about stopping people enjoying a few drinks in the pub. But things have gone far too far. Our town centres on a Friday and Saturday night can be battle zones for our police. Local parks and local estates are blighted by gangs of young troublemakers…. fuelled by alcohol given to them by irresponsible adults.
• I have talked to people up and down the country whose lives are being ruined by antisocial behaviour. It’s time we stood up for them.
• We’ll start with the problem of fourteen year olds hanging around with bottles of super-strength beers or ciders. It’s much too easy for them to get very drunk quickly and cheaply.
• We will increase the price of a four pack of super strength lager by £1.33. We will more than double tax on super strength cider. And our planned increase on alcopops will raise the price of a large bottle by £1.50. These tax changes will not hit responsible drinkers.
• We’ll tear up this Government’s lax licensing regime. Right now virtually anyone can get a licence to sell alcohol. We even have all night takeaways selling more drink to people as they stagger home from the pub. We will change that.
• We’ve also got to deal with those who commit the acts of antisocial behaviour and disorder as well. Right now they can offend again and again and just get away with it.
• Our criminal justice system is sending all the wrong messages. We need real punishments for young troublemakers. Not to send them home with a rap over the knuckles. That’s why we are working on a range of instant punishments for antisocial behaviour.
• Like grounding the offenders for up to a month. Or making them do community punishments, like cleaning up local parks. Real consequences for the trouble they’ve caused. But that’s for low level offences.
• For the more serious incidents, things must be different. We were all shocked by the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington. But let’s be clear. What happened to her wasn’t antisocial behaviour. It was criminal.
• Giving someone a caution or a fixed penalty notice means box ticked, case closed, another solved crime. But we know the system is being misused.
• But when serious offenders, like people carrying knives, also get off with a caution, when they should be behind bars.
• I think anyone who assaults a police officer should end up in court facing time behind bars.
• It’s time for a new deal with our police. We’ll deal with the things that frustrate them. We’ll get rid of the mountains of bureaucracy that make it easier to cut corners. We’ll provide them with proper protection against violence. We’ll get rid of the target culture that makes it easier to issue a caution than to prosecute. And we’ll give them back more power to charge criminals themselves.
• But in return we want real action against the troublemakers. And we want them to be more accountable to the communities they serve. The next Conservative Government will get rid of Britain’s caution culture. And will demand real moves to tackle antisocial behaviour. It’s time justice was really done on our streets.
• We will tear down Labour's big government bureaucracy, ripping up its timewasting, money-draining, responsibility-sapping nonsense.
• The police, the prosecution services, the prisons … is failing under the weight of big government targets and bureaucracy. The police aren't on the streets because they're busy complying with ten different inspection regimes.
• The police say the CPS isn't charging people because they have to hit targets to reduce the number of unsuccessful trials.
• And the prisons aren't rehabilitating offenders because they're focused on meeting thirty three different performance indicators.
• This all needs to change. I'm not going to stand here and promise you a country where nothing bad ever happens. I do not underestimate how difficult it will be to deal with this problem of crime and disorder.
• We cannot rebuild social responsibility from on high. But the least we can do the least we can do is pledge to all the people who are scared, who live their lives in fear and who can't protect themselves, that Chris Grayling, with Dominic Grieve, will reform the police, reform the courts, reform prisons.
• I see a country where you're not so afraid to walk home alone, where you're safe in the knowledge that right and wrong is restored to law and order.
• But if we pull together, come together, work together — we will get through this together.
• And when we look back we will say not that the government made it happen … not that the minister made it happen … but the businesswoman made it happen … the police officer made it happen … the father made it happen …the teacher made it happen.

You made it happen.

 

Right now it seems that the Conservatives are closest to the real issues and have the desire to bring about the reforms that are essential if we are to enjoy a more peaceful society. The message we would send out to whichever party is elected at the next election is this. Show us that you have learned from the lessons, mistakes and errors of judgement of the past. Waste no time on party policital spin, we've had a belly full of it. Ditch the blame culture once you have cleared the decks. Show us the truth about the state of the Criminal Justice System as it stands now, then waste no time on blame, show us with your actions that you are healing the wounds inflicted on this country over recent years. Then you will have our blessing, support and confidence. 
 
One last thing. There will be sectors of society waiting for you to trip up. Show us your guts and determination to succeed for us all. Don't give them the ammunition to shoot you. There will be those who will accuse you too, of having your noses buried deeply in the trough. Be aware of that. Act with transparency and honesty so that we will not feel our trust is misplaced.   
 
The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited
 
 

David Cameron : We'll Put Britain Back On Her Feet

David Cameron today pledged to defend “family, community, country” as he set out his vision for “a responsible society” under the Conservatives.

Promising he had the character, temperament and judgment to lead Britain, he described “how good things could be” if Government was cut back to help “put Britain back on her feet”.

He started with "I want to get straight to the point.We all know how bad things are: massive debt, social breakdown, political disenchantment. But what I want to talk about today is how good things could be. Don't get me wrong, I have no illusions. If win this election, it is going to be tough. There will have to be cutbacks in public spending, and that will be painful. We will need to confront Britain's culture of irresponsibility and that will be hard to take for many people. And we will have to tear down Labour's big government bureaucracy, ripping up its time-wasting, money-draining, responsibility-sapping nonsense.


"Why is our society broken? Because government got too big, did too much and undermined responsibility.
Recognising that what holds society together is responsibility, and that the good society is a responsible society – that’s what I’m about, that’s what any government I lead will be about,” Mr Cameron told the Conservative party conference in Manchester.

On Law and Order . . . .

The instinct to protect the people we love is so strong. Nearly two years ago it was that instinct – that love – that drove Fiona Pilkington to do something desperate.


When I first read her story in the paper I found it difficult to finish the article – it's one of the saddest things I've ever read.

Fiona was so driven to despair by the vile thugs that bullied her and her lovely disabled daughter Francecca and by the police that didn't answer her cries for help that she could only see one way out. She put her daughter in her car, drove to a layby, and set it on fire.

If no one would protect them then by ending their lives, she was keeping them safe.

No one could hurt them anymore. Just think about what we allowed to happen here in our country. This goes deep and it's been going on for years.

It is about a breakdown of all the things that are meant to keep us safe … a complete breakdown of responsibility.

A breakdown of morality in the minds of those thugs a total absence of feeling or conscience. A breakdown in community where a neighbour is left to reach a pitch of utter misery. And a breakdown of our criminal justice system.

Every part of it, the police, the prosecution services, the prisons … is failing under the weight of big government targets and bureaucracy. The police aren't on the streets because they're busy complying with ten different inspection regimes. The police say the CPS isn't charging people because they have to hit targets to reduce the number of unsuccessful trials.

And the prisons aren't rehabilitating offenders because they're focused on meeting thirty-three different performance indicators.

This all needs to change. I'm not going to stand here and promise you a country where nothing bad ever happens. I do not underestimate how difficult it will be to deal with this problem of crime and disorder.

We cannot rebuild social responsibility from on high. But the least we can do the least we can do is pledge to all the people who are scared, who live their lives in fear and who can't protect themselves, that a Conservative government, with Chris Grayling, with Dominic Grieve, will reform the police, reform the courts, reform prisons. We will be there to protect you.


Why is our society broken? Because government got too big, did too much and undermined responsibility.


Why are our politics broken? Because government got too big, promised too much and pretended it had all the answers.

Of course it was done with the best intentions. And let's be clear: not everything Labour did was wrong.

Devolution; the minimum wage; civil partnerships, these are good things that we will we keep.

But this idea that for every problem there's a government solution for every issue an initiative, for every situation a czar …

It ends with them making you register with the government to help out your child's football team. With police officers punished for babysitting each other's children. With laws so bureaucratic and complicated even their own attorney general can't obey them.

To read the full speech transcript click here

HAGUE WARNS AGAINST TORY COMPLACENCY

William Hague delivered a powerful first day speech at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester today.

To download the full speech click here.

Mr Hague said Labour would run a "wholly negative" campaign characterised by smears and playing on people's fears.

He told the Conservative Party conference that if Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, won the election "the last traces of hope and optimism and confidence about our national future would drain away".

Despite the opinion poll leads and local election successes, senior Conservatives have been careful to avoid sounding as if the general election was already won.

Mr Hague, effectively the Tories' deputy leader, said: "Whatever our successes and however much the country cries out for change, we must never allow one morsel of complacency to creep in to our campaign.

"We must be conscious that the system is stacked against us - that Labour only have to draw to win a majority in the House of Commons but we have to win by some two million votes to do the same.

"We must be conscious too that this election, as we saw in Brighton last week, will bring forth from Gordon Brown's Labour a wholly negative campaign - barricaded in the Downing Street bunker they will fling any dirt, stoke any fear, spread any smear and peddle any distortion to scare people into thinking that change is dangerous, honesty frightening, and the fresh air of new leadership actually poisonous for the people of Britain.

"This campaign will have ups and downs, it will have moments of difficulty, when we will need to keep our nerve, calm our friends, and make sure that we always march in step towards the goal of a better government for our country."

After the Prime Minister's conference speech last week, in which he reeled off a list of Labour's achievements, Mr Hague gave his own version detailing the Government's failures on public finances, crime and health.

He mocked Mr Brown over the "goats" that joined - and subsequently left - the Government of All the Talents.

"The arrival of a string of ministers from outside politics - Lord Malloch-Brown, Lord Darzi, Lord Digby Jones, was hailed by Gordon Brown as showing it was a Government of All the Talents.

"It turned out they were so talented that after working with him for a short time they left, and so we now have a Government of All the Talents with all the talents taken out of it."

Mr Brown and his Government "do not possess the quality of honesty, directness, decision-making and leadership necessary to make this country great and successful again".

Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, who Mr Hague said had given "new meaning to the word chumps", was singled out during an attack on the Government's lack of accountability.

"The Prime Minister nobody ever elected has been kept in office by a deputy nobody in the country had voted for at all, making up a Government with the least moral or democratic authority to govern in our lifetime."

COMMENT

Very persuasive Mr Hague. The fear the British public will have is how long the commitment to transparency and honesty will last once in office. The country will be looking for the next Government to prove by their actions that they will deliver on their plan. We have read the Conservative Plan for Social Reform (see links opposite & previous posts). The proposals for change will be challenging and require a courageous and committed team to implement them.

The priciples are sound. Should the Conservatives be successful at election time, we only hope that they will not provide the opposition and the public with the same ammunition for doubt, suspicion and ridicule that Mr
Brown and co have evidenced diring their rule.

We look forward to Chris Graylings' speech on Law & Order at 11.15am on Wednesday 7th October. We hope to see that Messrs Cameron & Grayling have a firm grasp of what is needed to fix the broken Criminal Justice System in this country and evidence that they will deliver the transparent and honest solutions so badly needed.

Over the coming weeks and months, where gaps in the Law & Order strategy seem evident, reports and communications will be posted directly to Mr Grayling from this site.

To see the full agenda for the Conservative Conference click here

The Crime Analysis Team

Nice 1 Limited

CAN DAVID CAMERON SAVE BRITAIN?

Next week sees the Conservative party conference rolls into Manchester. David Cameron promises they won't be playing it safe - instead they will be offering bold plans to deal with the big problems the country faces.

Labour spent their conference talking only to themselves - not the country.

In contrast, Mr Cameron says, you will see a Conservative Party united, determined and ready to deliver the bold, tough and radical change Britain needs.

Labour are now the party of unemployment - at this conference we are promised the tories will show that are the party of new jobs and new opportunities.

To deal with Labour's Debt Crisis the Conservatives will be setting out some of the tough decisions that need to be taken. They promise that unlike Gordon Brown they won't duck them.

To give people hope for the future the country needs to change direction, and the Conservative Conference must show how they are ready to make that change. There is absolutely no room for complacency.

DAVID Cameron pledges he will put the Great back into Britain.

He vows to deliver a better place to live if he becomes Prime Minister. He says he will put common sense back into everyday life and end Labour's days of political correctness.

"The Conservative Party did need to change. We weren't paying enough attention to the big issues of the future. I hope readers will come to us as an alternative to a government that they are fed up with.There are a series of things the Conservatives will do that readers would welcome after the 12 years we have had. These things will make Britain a better place to live."

He unveiled ten pledges aimed at achieving his dreams.

• He vows to freeze council tax
• Reassess Incapacity Benefit for 2.6million people to get loafers back to work
• Replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights.
• The number of MPs would be axed & Ministers' pay will be cut
• A Military Covenant with troops would be honoured to ensure they are properly equipped.
• Corporation Tax would also be axed
• National debt and public spending tackled
• Interest rates kept low to boost investment.
• Discipline would be restored at schools
• Magistrates would get more powers

Meanwhile, Mr Cameron today also pledges to turn Britain into a world-beater in time for the 2012 London Olympics. He wants to repair Broken Britain and turn it into a beacon for industrial strength, national confidence and strong society for the world to see.

Central to his plan would be to make JOBS his number one priority if he is made Premier. Mr Cameron says: "I'd like people to come here for the Olympics in 2012... but we also want to show a country which is getting back on its feet."

He adds: "We have to start with that appalling scourge of unemployment. We're now facing a situation where we have one in five young people out of work. We're getting back towards that terrible number of three million unemployed."

Mr Cameron pledged "big, bold and radical plans" to get people back to work. He says: "I understand, if you leave people unemployed, and short term unemployment becomes long term, then it becomes a lifetime of unemployment. It's a waste of a life. I must stop it happening."

He also vows to be "straight" with people about the deficit - "the most difficult issue facing the party". Mr Cameron says: "We are going to confront it. Gordon Brown completely failed to do this. You cannot deal with it just by cutting waste. This is going to require a great national effort.

"The people will have to come together under strong national leadership and come out the other side with a strong economy and we will be living within our means and we can start getting peoples' taxes down again.

The Tory chief also warns that the Conservatives are not going to sit back and take an election victory for granted. He says: "We will not sit back on our laurels. We want to earn the trust of the British people."

WHAT OF THE POLICE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORMS?

David Cameron and Chris Grayling, (the next Home Secretary if the Conservatives gain power),  have set out their blueprint for reforming the Police & Criminal Justice System. We have captured the essence of their proposals in a summary document. To see what they plan to implement, click here to download the summary.

To download a copy of the Conservative Plan For Social Reform click here. Both of these documents will remain avaiable from links on the right side of this site.

So, returning to the question "Can David Cameron save Britain?" - well that remains to be seen. If his words back up his actions, and his promises of tough and radical changes are delivered, he faces the prospect of a Thatcher like unpopularity amongst sections of the community. This country needs someone who will not falter in the face of unpopular decisions. It needs someone who will meet them head on and take the course that is right for the masses.

Max Hastings of the Daily Mail asks if Mr Cameron is ruthless enough to do what is necessary. His article sums it up well. Click here to see it.

Crime Analysis Team

Nice 1 Limited