Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

This Is How To Halve The Crime Rate: So Why Aren't We Doing It? (UK)
The Telegraph ^ | 9-15-2002

Posted on 09/15/2002 4:23:25 PM PDT by blam

This is how to halve the crime rate: so why aren't we doing it?

(Filed: 15/09/2002)

The American approach to law enforcement has long been ridiculed as barbaric, pointless and expensive. But, as Alasdair Palmer and Charles Laurence in New York report, putting people behind bars works

On April 24, when concern over street robberies was at its height, Tony Blair told the House of Commons that "we will bring street crime under control by the end of September".

It is now the middle of September, and figures released last week by the Home Office indicated that street crime has come down by an average of 14 per cent in the four months between April and August.

It means - as David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, pointed out - that "70 fewer people each day are now suffering street crime across the country".

While everyone should be pleased about that statistic, whether it actually counts as bringing street crime "under control" is, of course, another matter. The depressing fact is that crime over all kinds has nearly doubled during the past 20 years in Britain.

The police recorded just over 2.4 million crimes in 1982 in England and Wales, compared with more than 4.5 million in 2001. There was a similar increase in Scotland.

Britain has one of the highest rates of property crime in the Western world. It is an unenviable record which the latest small reductions in street crime have unfortunately done little to change.

Coincidentally, on the same day that the Home Office announced the drop in street robberies, the United States Justice Department announced its latest figures.

The US crime rate, instead of doubling during the past 20 years, has halved. Yes, you read that correctly: the rate at which crimes are committed in America is now one half of the rate 20 years ago. Indeed, it is at its lowest level since 1973.

In 1973, 44 million crimes were reported by their victims to the police in America. By 2001, only 24.2 million were recorded.

This method of counting crime, dependent on the victim reporting it, includes rape, robbery, assault, burglary and theft of all kinds.

It does not include murders - which the victim obviously cannot report. But the US murder rate has also diminished dramatically. In 1973, there were 9.5 murders for every 100,000 Americans. In 2001, the figure was 5.5.

These extraordinary plunges in the US crime rate certainly put this week's 14 per cent reduction in street crime in Britain in humiliating perspective. That reduction, anyhow, came only after an even bigger surge in such crime: street robberies, which rose by 30 per cent in some cities in the year to 2001, are not yet back to the "low" level they were in 2000.

For decades, it has been received wisdom within the Home Office and departments of criminology that governments can do little or nothing to stop the rising tide of criminality. The American approach of more arrests and longer sentences for those convicted has been consistently ridiculed as "barbaric", "inhumane", and above all, "pointless".

Michael Howard, the Home Secretary in the last Conservative government, frequently recalls how, on the first day he took up that office, his officials glumly told him that increases in crime were "inevitable".

The Americans have shown that, in fact, it is possible to cut the crime rate dramatically. How have they done it? What is the secret? Most of America's fall in crime has happened in the past seven years.

In 1994, for every 1,000 Americans aged 12 or older, 52 were victims of crime. Last year, that figure was down to 25 in every 1,000.

The fall coincides with a large increase in the number of police in most big cities, and the adoption of much harsher sentences for convicted criminals. America has embarked on a colossal prison-building programme in the past decade. The result of longer sentences and less parole and probation is that those prisons are now all full.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that prison works: putting more people behind bars has caused America's crime rate to drop. That is certainly what John Lott, of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, believes. "Beefed up enforcement works," he says.

"The deterrence lies in the rate of arrest and the terms of incarceration. The key factor is the amount of time the bad guys stay in jail, together with the likelihood of getting caught.

The big stick of large police numbers, ordered to make arrests whenever possible, plus fierce judges ready to hand down maximum sentences, back up by parole restrictions, have together had the biggest effect."

Mr Lott adds that the more criminals there are in prison, the fewer there are on the streets, and the more the balance is tipped in favour of the police "the apprehension rate goes higher, and the crime rate falls faster".

Criminologists who are attached to "sociological" explanations of crime - poverty, deprivation, and so on - are scratching their heads over the dramatic fall in the American crime rate. That fall is unprecedented.

For almost all of the 20th century, crime rose relentlessly, in times of prosperity and depression alike. Social conditions, whether improving or deteriorating seemed to have no effect at all on diminishing crime: the curve was relentlessly upwards, whatever social policies the government put in place - until, that is, the government decided to lock up a much higher proportion of those convicted of criminal offences.

Some claim that the drop in the murder rate is a result of the fact that many killings happen during wars between gangs for control of the drug trade - and blood-letting over several years has finally stabilised the territories of the various drug king-pins.

"A lot of these kids have killed each other off already," says James Fyfe, a professor of Criminology at Temple University, in Philadelphia, although he also adds that "many of them are also now in prison".

But even if that explanation of the fall in the murder rate were true, it can't explain why the numbers of rapes, assaults, robberies, burglaries and car thefts have all plummeted since a more punitive regime was introduced.

Can Britain reproduce America's success in reducing crime? It seems to depend on whether we are prepared to follow America's lead in imprisoning a much higher percentage of criminals. It is often said that Britain already imprisons many more people than most of the countries in continental Europe, which is true - but the statistic is very misleading.

Most other European countries also have a much lower crime rate than Britain does. The relevant comparison is, therefore, the rate at which convicted criminals are sentenced to imprisonment - and that is lower in Britain than in Spain, Italy, France, Ireland, Greece and Switzerland (as well as Australia and Canada).

Judges and magistrates in Britain are generally very reluctant to sentence criminals to imprisonment. The Crime Sentencing Act of 1997 was supposed to introduce a mandatory sentence of three years for a third offence of domestic burglary. Yet, in the two and a half years since the Act came into force, only six three-year sentences for a third offence have been imposed.

The judges successfully lobbied for the right not to impose the mandatory sentence if they felt it was unjust. The result is the pathetically small number of three-year sentences for domestic burglars caught for the third time.

One consequence of the judges' reluctance to sentence offenders to long terms in prison is that in 2000, more than 14,000 convicted criminals were given "community supervision orders" for violent offences.

More than 10,000 people who were convicted of burglary were not sent to prison, but given community supervision; the same punishment was given to at least 41,000 people convicted of theft or handling stolen goods.

Although Mr Blunkett has insisted many times over that he is determined to reduce crime levels, he has not proposed the introduction of legislation that would force judges to impose harsher sentences. The Government is also not committed to building a significant number of new prisons. On the contrary, the Home Secretary is committed to a greater use of "community supervision orders", and the use of "tagging".

"Tagging has been a failure," says David Fraser, the director of Crime and Society Research Association. "The convicted criminal has only to wear the tag between 7pm and 7am. For the rest of the day, he is free to commit crime - which is what most of them do.

"The Home Office statistics boasting success for the scheme are completely bogus. Crime detection rates are so low - only about 5 per cent - that most of the crime committed by people while tagged is simply not identified. What we do know is that, for those who have three to six previous convictions - which is by far the majority of those who are "tagged" - the reconviction rate is over 70 per cent."

Mr Blunkett himself might privately wish that he could build more prisons. His hands, however, are tied by the Treasury.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is not willing to release the large sums required for a substantial prison-building programme: the increases in spending on the National Health Service and education will mop up any surplus he has.

Y et the economy is a false one, as David Green, an economist at Civitas, a think tank in London, points out. "Prison" he says, "is in fact very good value for money."

The Home Office, Dr Green notes, estimates that crime costs about £60 billion a year. The Government's White Paper, Criminal Justice: the Way Ahead, maintains that a "hard core" of about 100,000 repeat offenders is responsible for about half of all crime - which means that the "hard core" costs the country about £30 billion a year, or £300,000 for each offender. It costs only a tenth of that sum - £37,500 - to keep each one of that "hard core" in prison for a year. Clearly, prison is "worth it".

Only about 20,000 of these offenders are in prison at any one time. Dr Green concludes that the Government should be building another 80,000 prison places, so it can lock up all 100,000 hard core offenders. Yet it is not going to do so: ministers have already stated that they regard the present prison population as too high.

The result is that it is extremely unlikely that Britain's crime rate will follow America's down to the levels it was at the start of the 1970s.

The Government has made its choice: a low prison population is preferable to a low crime rate


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: crime; halve; how; rate; to
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-28 next last

1 posted on 09/15/2002 4:23:25 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: blam
Eventually, they are going to have to go the prison-building route.

The US population finally got fed up with rising crime and forced the politicians to act. That will happen in Britain one of these days.
2 posted on 09/15/2002 4:32:31 PM PDT by expatpat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
"The convicted criminal has only to wear the tag between 7pm and 7am. For the rest of the day, he is free to commit crime - which is what most of them do.

WTF is this?!?!?! I guess the 'subjects' have no say in this...

3 posted on 09/15/2002 4:33:16 PM PDT by Skwidd
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
I watched a movie recently that showed how the British police have CCTV cameras mounted all over London keeping an eye on activitys on the street.I guess these have not been working to control crime.They have the cameras hooked up to facial recognition technology so they can pick out wanted criminals out of a crowd.All this seems to be failing to control crime.
4 posted on 09/15/2002 4:37:26 PM PDT by Rocksalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
Seeing that we are so far ahead of them by statistics how dare anyone from Bitain ever comment about our method of handling crime. Funny, how dare anyone ever say jail and death penalties doen't prevent crime.

Interesting our rates have dropped correspondingly to the reinstatement of death penalties and sentencing guidelines. Hmmmm
5 posted on 09/15/2002 4:37:38 PM PDT by JSteff
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
More criminals in prison in Britain is only a small part of the answer. Some of the other needed elements, which the US has in certain instances also failed to implement, are:
- Restoration of gun rights. Armed criminals have absolutely nothing to fear from a gunless population.
- Restoration of self-defense rights. In Britain, if you defend yourself and hurt the perp, YOU can be, and many people have been arrested, tried and convicted (somone please tell me I'm wrong, but I don't think so).
- Restoration ohe death penalty.
- Deportation of illegal immigrants.

I believe it's true that most of London is now considered to be more dangerous than most large American cities, except maybe Detroit, Chicago, and Atlanta, for all crimes except murder.
6 posted on 09/15/2002 4:48:52 PM PDT by litany_of_lies
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

Know any Conservative criminologists? Me neither. They are Liberal idiots in the position of dictating policy, for the most part. Of course they're scratching their heads. They are aghast at the fact that their policies, which they didn't get to completely implement, thank God, haven't worked.

Now to bring down the murder rate we need to implement the death penalty for murder. If you rape or assault, you will get prison, but if you pull the trigger, or otherwise cause the victimto die, you hang. Watch the murder rate drop to near zero.

I'm so tired of the Liberal, Gramscian lies. They will support any law or policy so long as it has the effect of destroying our nation.

For Newbies and some Lurkers, do a search on Antonio Gramsci.

7 posted on 09/15/2002 4:52:37 PM PDT by Concentrate
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Rocksalt
"I watched a movie recently that showed how the British police have CCTV cameras mounted all over London keeping an eye on activitys on the street."

I saw that too. They even have a CCTV on the CCTV so they can catch those who damage them, lol.

8 posted on 09/15/2002 4:53:05 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Concentrate
"For Newbies and some Lurkers, do a search on Antonio Gramsci."

...also, check under "Prison Papers"

9 posted on 09/15/2002 4:55:34 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Rocksalt
Probably because crime prevention was not the cameras' principle purposes. Population control was and is.
10 posted on 09/15/2002 4:57:12 PM PDT by Concentrate
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: blam
Oh, thank you. I shall.
11 posted on 09/15/2002 4:58:35 PM PDT by Concentrate
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: blam
Ha Ha! That's where the kids climb up the poles and throw raincoats over the cameras or spraypaint the lenses. I'm curious,do you know,are guns still totally illegal in G.B.,someone told me the laws changed over there at some point to where a person can carry one with a permit. More people over there having self-protection might help the situation.I'm also wondering if shooting an armed assailant is permitable over there.Anyone know?
12 posted on 09/15/2002 5:02:50 PM PDT by Rocksalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Concentrate
Population control? Explain how CCTV cameras do that? Monitoring their activitys or what?
13 posted on 09/15/2002 5:05:26 PM PDT by Rocksalt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Rocksalt; MadIvan
Don't know. Let's ask FReeper MadIvan, he lives in London.
14 posted on 09/15/2002 5:07:47 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: blam
The author is very careful not to mention gun ownership in America. I believe this fact plays more of a role in deterring crime than proponents of gun ownership might realize.
15 posted on 09/15/2002 5:10:02 PM PDT by semaj
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
The result is the pathetically small number of three-year sentences for domestic burglars caught for the third time.

Three years. For the third conviction. It strikes me that one thing that has happened in the last thirty years is the "three-strikes-you're-out" life sentencing for lifestyle felons. That, of course, is also "disproportionate and barbaric." Works, too.

I know that in my state, Washington, things got to the point where under 10% of the criminals were committing 80% of the crime. If an appreciable proportion of those are not in prison for life that would help explain the drop in crime, wouldn't it?

16 posted on 09/15/2002 5:22:44 PM PDT by Billthedrill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Concentrate
Since we're fantasizing, can I add one more?

There is no use in rewarding someone with a bad aim. Attempted murder should be a capital crime punishable by death.
17 posted on 09/15/2002 5:29:25 PM PDT by Shooter 2.5
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Concentrate
Know any Conservative criminologists? Me neither.

Well, Gary Kleck set out to prove that guns cause crime, and was honest enough to reveal (in "Point Blank") that his research in fact showed the opposite.

18 posted on 09/15/2002 5:34:48 PM PDT by supercat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: supercat
Well, Gary Kleck set out to prove that guns cause crime, and was honest enough to reveal (in "Point Blank") that his research in fact showed the opposite.

Your are correct. Notice how very carefully the author of this article keeps from mentioning guns at all? But over the time period mentioned, 30 of the 50 states changed to a "shall issue" type of concealed carry permit, which, by Dr. Lott's studies, was very effective in reducing crime. Now, 44 states have some type of legal concealed carry for citizens, while the other 6 are in the totalitarian category of only allowing it for agents of the state.

The author also fails to mention that the ownership of pistols, all semi-automatic and pump rifles and shotguns, were also made illegal over this period in Britain. Self defense, as was previously mentioned, has also been gradually made illegal.

19 posted on 09/15/2002 7:16:26 PM PDT by marktwain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: blam
It's very simple. Enter my house, uninvited, then you are invited to the cemetery for planting your ass in another piece of ground that you were not persuing in your pursute of your pursute. 1,200 rounds of 9mm from a Browning High Power is not a welcome note towards aggressive persons in this household.
20 posted on 09/15/2002 7:36:37 PM PDT by BulletBrasDotNet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-28 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson