Posted on 08/23/2006 2:04:48 PM PDT by neverdem
Householders living in London or any other big city will rub their eyes in disbelief at Sir Ian Blair's suggestion that they feel safe enough to leave their doors unlocked.
In addition, his declaration that levels of security are on a par with those in 1981 makes a pretty big assumption that 25 years ago crime was low.
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who would then have been a young CID officer in London, must have a short memory.
advertisementIt was in the 1960s and 1970s that crime really began to rise dramatically, with acquisitive offences such as burglary and car thefts peaking in the early 1990s.
There is a tendency among ministers and senior police officers to assert that the chances of being a victim of crime is back to where it was in 1981, although that date is chosen only because it was when the British Crime Survey started.
Even if the survey is a reliable guide to trends in crime, and many people doubt that it is, the fact remains that in 1981 crime was already high and it seems unlikely that many people on Sir Ian's beat were leaving their doors unlocked even then.
You have to go back to the 1950s for the last time people anywhere, but especially in the towns and cities, left their doors open - and certainly not at night.
That was a time when crime was significantly lower and the criminal justice system more effective. There were far fewer police, yet they were more were visible on the streets. Many lived in the sorts of communities into which they now commute. Often they lived in a police house, virtually all of which have now been sold.
It is fashionable for politicians and police chiefs to sneer at the idea of the 1950s ''golden age" and it certainly was not a period free of crime. But most people did not experience crime in the way they do today.
Council estates were not riven by crime; it was possible to leave the back door unlocked at night; public buildings were not covered with graffiti; vandalism was rare; and gross incivility towards adults and police officers was unusual.
Sir Ian was born in 1953 when the crime total was at least 10 times less than it is now. Those who committed an offence were more likely to be caught and punished: the police cleared up 51 per cent of robberies, compared with about 24 per cent today, and clear-up rates for burglary and theft were twice what they are now.
But by 1981 crime had risen remorselessly: 3.2 million crimes were recorded that year, compared with 434,000 in the year Sir Ian was born, and there were 400,000 recorded burglaries - more than there were last year. Burglary has fallen markedly in recent years, largely because more householders have fitted alarms and better locks, often under pressure from insurance companies after break-ins.
So crime in 1981 was not much better than it is now, even if acquisitive crimes have gone up and back down in the meantime.
However, it remains at a historically high level and well above the levels it was when people really did feel happy enough to leave their doors unlocked.
Meh, I often leave my door unlocked in the daytime.
"I often leave my door unlocked in the daytime".
I suppose it has improved with the unhappy Muslim population?
I could do that where I lived a few years ago, but it sure wasn't in London.
Roe V Wade cured the crime problem in the U.S.A.
Abortion is the biggest crime that is ongoing that goes UNpunished. It's nothing more than premeditated murder for self serving reasons.
"Roe V Wade cured the crime problem in the U.S.A."
No, it didn't.
http://www.isteve.com/abortion.htm
criminals have more rights in the UK than law abiding subjects [citizens].....
I wonder why the government puts up with the competition?
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