Prison Works

More good news

As regular readers will know, Tyler is one of those New Jerusalem deniers. And when it comes to Labour's good news crime stats, he's always been particularly sceptical (eg see this blog).

Yesterday we got the final instalment of those stats - the annual update of crime for 2009/10 as recorded by the police, alongside the results of the British Crime Survey (ie the crime opinion poll). And - surprise, surprise - both showed another fall. Naturally the BBC is very pleased:

"The number of crimes committed in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level since records began in 1981...

...The statistics show that crime has fallen by 43% since 1997, leaving Labour able to claim that its level is lower now than when Tony Blair first entered Downing Street."

Oh, no wait... that second sentence only appears in the BBC's sister publication (the Grun). Anyway, the left is delighted, especially since it supports their argument that we don't need to build any more prisons. Crime is already plummeting they say, so why waste money on prisons? The cash would be much better spent on restorative arts projects for rapists.

But whatever the BBC and the Grun say, our splendid new Home Secretary clearly shares our scepticism. Theresa says:

'Any reductions in crime are welcome, but we know these statistics offer a partial picture about the true level of crime. And there are many offences, including antisocial behaviour, which are not always reported or fully recorded, but which ruin too many lives...

We are determined to restore trust in crime statistics and are currently considering how they should be collected and published in future. We are working with the UK Statistics Authority and others to consider this carefully.'

Good. We look forward to getting stats that at least vaguely approximate our actual experience of rising crime (see previous blog, and this blog for an account of the most recent criminal outrage to hit Tyler Towers).

But just for a moment, let's suspend our disbelief. Let's for once listen to the mellifluous sermons of Bishop Snow and the Rev Easton, and let's assume the existing stats are the unvarnished truth. Let's assume that crime really has fallen by 43% since 1997. What does that tell us?

Well, the obvious, jump-off-the-page, shout-in-your-face, message is that Michael Howard was right - prison really does work.

Let's take a look. The following chart shows how measured crime has fallen since 1995, on Labour's preferred British Crime Survey measure. It also shows how the number of prison places (strictly, the prison population) has risen over the period. For ease of comparion, both series are shown in index form, with 1995=100.

As we can see, as prison numbers have increased, measured crime has fallen (the gaps in the early years reflect gaps in the reported BCS numbers).

Let's look at the statistical relationship more closely. The following chart shows a simple regression of each year's crime numbers against the same year's prison numbers:

Now for those of you who never did get round to reading Teach Yourself Statistics, those regression results indicate a very close relationship between the two series. A very close relationship indeed. An R² of 0.88 is equivalent to a correlation coefficient of 0.94 - as near as damn it, a perfect fit.

And specifically, what our estimated regression equation says is that each additional prisoner is associated with 275 fewer crimes. In other words, prison works. Bigtime.

What? What's that you say? Correlation does not imply causation?

Well, no, to be sure, you must be right.

Yes. Yes indeed. Well remembered.

I mean that extraordinarily close relationship could be caused by all sorts of other things.

Like... ummm... well, maybe the police have become so much more efficient that that they are preventing crime before it even happens. Could that be it?

Hmmm... no... that can't be right... not our police with their plummeting detection rates and their social worker Chief Constables.

No, it must be... aahhh... yes, better burglar alarms and Krooklocks on cars.

And yes, there must be some truth in that. Mustn't there?

Wellll... you really can't help spotting that those crime stats went on rising right up to the very point where M Howard got his massive prison programme going (see chart at top). Surely burglar alarms and Krooklocks were already improving long before then. How do you explain the sudden break?

Of course, it is possible that all those sermons from the BBC and C4 pulpits have finally done the trick. That the sinners hath repentethed, and the lions hath laid down with the lambs.

Yes, that's possible.

Although it doesn't yet seem to have happened round Tyler's way.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: crime stats

Bringing The Law Into Disrepute

Free to kill

So let's get this straight.

At God knows what expense, Jamie Bulger's killer was given a new identity and freed into society after just seven years simply because our costly forces of law and order decided he was a reformed character and no longer a danger to us. Only it turns out he wasn't.

Ashleigh Hall's killer was a highly dangerous rapist with a long string of convictions for violent sex offences, who was freed to wander among us simply because our costly forces of law and order decided that putting him on the Sex Offenders Register would be enough to keep us safe. Only it turns out it wasn't.

For many years, our Prog Con "justice" establishment have been assuring us that the "blue rinse brigade" like Tyler are wrong and that violent crime has been falling. Only it turns out it hasn't.

This morning we learn that violent crime has been going through the roof. New research from the independent House of Commons Library (but not yet online for mere taxpayers to see) shows that violence against the person increased from 618,417 in 1998 to 887,942 last year - a massive 44% rise.

As BOM readers will know (eg see this blog) there are two ways of measuring the overall incidence of crime. The government's preferred measure is the British Crime Survey (BCS), and that records an apparent 40% fall in crime over the same period. But the BCS is no more than an elaborate opinion poll, and suffers from all the usual infelicities (and spin) of polling. Most of us would prefer to rely on the actual police recorded crime stats, which is what this new research uses.

Unfortunately, the police stats have been subject to two changes in recording and compilation methodology since Labour came to power. That has been very convenient for the Prog Con lobby (such as the BBC's Rev Easton), because it has allowed them to focus their coverage on the opinion poll, and deride bigots like Tyler for ignoring "the facts".

The significance of this new research is that it has been able to adjust the police stats for the most recent of the methodological changes, and give us a consistent comparison over the whole period from 1998. (Note too that the adjustment is taken from figures supplied by the Home Office - it hasn't simply been plucked from the air).

So, a convicted killer was released among us despite still being a danger. A convicted serial rapist was released to kill another innocent victim. Violent crime is rising all around us. And our so-called "Justice" Secretary justifies his own silence on a matter of grave public concern on the basis that anything else "would not be in the public interest".

Well, mate, excuse me, but we are the friggin' public, and we feel quite grown up enough to decide for ourselves what's in our interest.

The truth is that our criminal justice industry treats the public with contempt. We may pay £19bn pa for the police, £7bn pa for the courts and their lawyers, and £5bn pa for our prisons, but those that run them think they are perfectly free to pursue their own agendas. Instead of running things as we'd like, they spend hundreds of millions - of our friggin' money - trying to snow us with propaganda that crime is mainly inside our own heads. Underneath those blue rinses.

But there is a terrible consequence brewing up. When people lose confidence in the official justice system, they start looking to alternatives. Vigilante justice for Jamie Bulger's killers would be just the start.

PS Yes, I realise the Prog Con are suggesting that Ashleigh Hall would still be alive if the police had done their job properly. If they'd not allowed registered sex offender Chapman (picture) to "slip off their radar", then all would have been well. But in reality, the police are not capable of keeping track of these people. Someone determined to slip the net can do so. Which is why we should pursue a failsafe policy of keeping people like Chapman locked away. Most of us care far more about keeping the public safe, and maintaining public confidence in the justice system, than we do about the vague theological possibility of personal redemption.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: crime stats, Criminal Justice

Public Trust In Official Statistics

All over the place: reporting methods have changed twice since 1997

As you will know, shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling has been rapped over the knuckles for misusing official statistics by the head of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar.

Sir Michael wrote to Grayling:

"I must take issue with what you said yesterday about violent crime statistics, which seems to me likely to damage public trust in official statistics."

Grayling's offence was to claim that official stats show violent crime has been increasing under Labour. In reality they don't show that - or indeed anything - because of changes in recording methodology since Labour came to power.

Now, as we've blogged before, we have the greatest respect for Sir Michael. He's one of our few remaining mandarins of the old school: those Oxbridge men of myth and legend who believe duty to country always trumps duty to some here-today-gone-tomorrow politico. So if he raps someone, we must accept it's a fair cop.

Which is why the Prog Con is so jubilant. Alongside Rev Easton's sixpennyworth, the Independent whoops:

"The humiliating slapdown adds to doubts about how credible the Conservatives are as a potential government, when they appear to be only three months away from taking office."

Strange we can't recall them making any comparable point when Sir Michael read the riot act over Jacqui's shocking abuse of knife crime stats (see this blog).

But whatever the Prog Con says, the Big Truth here is that for judging long-term crime trends the UK's crime stats are next to useless. We've blogged this many times, but the key points are:

1. Recorded crime statistics - supposedly the hard measure of crime that is serious enough to report to the police - have been through two changes of counting/recording methodology since 1997; Labour's criminal record is therefore conveniently masked (the latest Home Office report is here).
2. Recorded crime stats come from the police who are heavily conflicted. Under Labour's tractor production regime, police performance is judged against targets based on these very stats, so naturally they are heavily gamed and distorted (eg see this blog, including Inspector Gadget's account of how "threatening behaviour" - a recorded crime of violence - gets downgraded to "drunk and disorderly" which does not show up in government stats; and see this blog for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary confirming that a third of violent crimes don't get recorded, probably in order to meet government targets).
3. The government's own preferred measure of crime - the British Crime Survey - is no more than an opinion poll on people's perceptions and experience of crime (how you feeling now love?). It is entirely voluntary, and it suffers from all the usual flakiness of such polls. When we looked at it, we found it claiming to have a 75% overall response rate, but much lower in high crime urban areas (62% claimed). It reckons to have a +/-3.5% statistical confidence interval around its estimate of total crime (an uncertainty margin that rarely gets mentioned by ministers). But that is not the sum total of the uncertainty, because we have no idea whether people with high experience of crime are more or less likely to respond. In Tyler's humble opinion, as a measure of actual crime it ain't worth the paper it's expensively printed on. 
4. None of these stats are produced by the independent Office for National Statistics, but outrageously are still under the control of the Home Office - ie the very people who are most interested in persuading us that crime is falling. Sure, they now say they adhere to the National Statistics Code of Practice, but come on.

The fact is that the official crime statistics do not need Chris Grayling to damage public trust in them - they are doing a great job all by themselves.

All of which leaves us with a problem. Because if the official measures of crime are useless, how do we tell if Labour's record is good or bad?

Yup, we have to conduct our own crime counts. And here's Tyler's.

Since Labour came to power, Tyler Towers has suffered two assaults from burglars - including this one - against none previously. The houses on both sides have suffered as well. In the next road there has been an apparent contract killing. Prior to 1997 there were no such events.

One of Tyler's sons has been decked by a thuggish Balkanese (?) minicab driver, against no such deckings pre-1997.

Tyler's brother and his family have been subjected to an armed robbery in their own home, against no such robberies pre-1997.

From where we sit, the record looks all too clear.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: crime stats

More Cost Ineffective Justice

Violent crime now even worse than unthinkably thought in 2000*

Returning from a couple of days sans broadband, we've been catching up with the Village Postmaster.

He and his family have suffered what's officially categorised as a high trauma crime - robbery in their own home. But we're pleased to see they're back up and running, and they've clearly had huge support from their customers and the local community. After 50 years of soft criminal justice and corrosive welfare dependency, it's reassuring to know some bits of Britain remain unbroken.

At least the police do seem to be taking it seriously. They told the VP that the raid on his store was one of many - the night after his own raid, three more retailers in the county suffered the same fate, quite likely at the hands of the same gang. They really do need to hunt down these scum before somebody gets hurt.

But then what? We return to the same question we asked initially - why do we have to tolerate people like this among us? Why can't we just lock them away for good?

As we've blogged many times, the Home Office has previously estimated* that half of all serious crime is committed by around 100,000 persistent offenders. Each one commits an average of 90 serious crimes every year. Yes, that's right - 90 (see here).

But of those 100,000, only 20,000 are in prison at any one time. The rest are out among us, free to crack on - robbing the VP in his own home, raping, pillaging, whatever takes their fancy.

The obvious solution is to build another 80,000 prison places (doubling the current number) and keep these persistent offenders inside. Permanently.

At the current average £40 grand per place, that would cost us £3.2bn pa, £1bn of which we could get by abolishing the useless probation service (eg see this blog). And by using a little imagination, we could substantially reduce the cost (Tyler Senior favours doing a deal with the Russians for some of their underutilised correctional facilities).

It all seems so obvious to Tyler, the Major, and a host of ordinary people out here in the real world. So why don't we do it?

We know why: our wibbly Prog Con elite - who rarely experience serious high trauma crime themselves - persistently block any such moves. People like Aaronovitch, Finkelstein, and Easton, are forever telling us we are Daily Mail moral panickers, and we are in denial about the true facts (eg see here and here). For is it not the case that the government's official crime statistics show a continuing fall in serious crime?

To which our response has always been that the published official crime stats are so massaged and manipulated that they're not worth the eco-friendly recycled paper they're printed on. And in the last couple of days we've had yet more proof.

First, Denis O’Connor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, has confirmed something we've blogged before - namely that the police are systematically under-recording crimes of violence:

"The plight of battered wives and other incidences of violence are being ignored by police. A third of the violent offences which were not recorded as crimes should have been...

Among the cases was that of one force which recorded that “no crime” had taken place when a woman’s partner slapped her, grabbed her by the neck and threw her on the floor, leaving her battered and bruised. The officers wrote that the victim would say that she had injured herself and that her partner’s account was “more accurate”...

In another incident, a man was knocked to the ground by a blow behind his ear. He was then kicked in the body. He needed six stitches in his head. The officer said he found the circumstances unusual and that the man might have been under the influence of alcohol when he fell. Mr O’Connor’s report said the incident should have been recorded as grievous bodily harm."

According to O’Connor, "the drive to meet government targets could be one reason why officers were failing to record offences".

You don't say.

Second, Policy Exchange have unearthed some unpublished Home Office research showing that the number of hardened offenders has increased alarmingly since the data summarised above:

This new study identifies 350,000 high-rate persistent criminals, who each commit around 260 crimes a year on average. That compares to the 155,000 identified in the earlier Home Office report* - a massive increase. And the number of active offenders overall now stands at an estimated 1.6 million (compared to 1.2 million earlier).

Alarmingly, it is in crimes of violence that the situation has deteriorated most.

The chart above is taken from a confidential crime report produced by Lord Birt for Tony Bliar in 2000. It shows what Birt thought would happen to violent crime by 2010 if the historic trend continued.

But although the chart was designed to shock, Birt was too optimistic. Even though we haven't yet reached 2010, according to the latest HO stats, recorded offences of violence against the person are already running well above the three-quarters of a million extrapolated by Birt. And that's despite the police fiddling the numbers.

But forget hopeless Labour - despite their neat slogans, they've always been useless on crime, and surely we all knew that really. The key question now is what is hug-a-hoodie Cam going to do about it?

I'm afraid I know. And it's not good news.

He's going to say, yes all this crime is a terrible indictment of 13 years of Labour misrule. Yes, indeed. And I'd like to help - I really would. But unfortunately there's no money. Cuh! What can you do?

Which is simply not good enough.

Because quite apart from the high trauma regularly inflicted on innocent hard-working families like the VP's, the Home Office itself reckons the loss and damage to property is now running at well over £100bn pa. Which makes the prison bill look like peanuts.

It's time. Broken Britain or not, we demand some proper cost effective justice.

*Footnote The earlier Home Office research was summarised in Lord Birt's thinking the unthinkable 2000 report for Bliar's Strategy Unit "A new vision for the Criminal Justice System" (see here). Including those 100,000 active persistent offenders who commit 50% of all serious crime, it said there were 1.2 million "active offenders". 155,000 of them were "high rate" offenders each carrying out an average of 250 - yes, 250 - crimes a year.

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www.gudanggrosiran.com Categories: crime, crime stats, Criminal Justice