Daily Archive

The BBC reports:

A strategy to move public perception of crime into line with falling figures is due to be launched by ministers.

Despite crime statistics having dropped for the last decade, British people are among the most fearful in Europe…

Perhaps ministers ought to tune into the same wavelength as “fearful” Britons. And so should media.

…The report added that, while the British Crime Survey (BCS) said crime had fallen by a third from 1997 to 2006, recorded violent crime had risen by 21%…

There you go; people aren’t afraid of “crime” per se. Rather, they are “fearful” (unreasonable as this may be) of “violent crime”. And that latter has demonstrably increased.

Separately, we were told back in May:

…when researchers questioned more than 1,000 residents living in 10 council wards - from inner City Liverpool to rural Cornwall - concerns were largely about anti-social behaviour.

Top of the list were groups of youths or others hanging around in the street, followed by disturbances involving young people, then criminal damage, abuse or graffiti…

Not all of these end up in the crime statistics, but they can still make peoples lives a misery…

And for most people, criminal activity in their minds includes such “activities”. Loitering often forms the basis for “disturbances” and eventually “criminal damage, abuse, or graffiti”. Those latter, even if unreported, are actually criminal, and all of such are sadly all too increasingly commonplace.

Most importantly, there is a vital connection between the two: those who “break windows” and graffiti walls tend to be more likely than those who don’t to “graduate” within a time into those who rob elderly women.

So ministers ought to understand that perceptions tend to change when real conditions actually change. Mind games won’t work. So redirect any monies earmarked for propagandizing towards cutting violent crime and other activities that lead to the perceptions . . . and then sit back and be amazed at how the perceptions then change.