28 June 2007

Government figures 'missing' two million violent crimes

Ah, the island utopia of England.

It turns out that crime reporting in the UK has been somewhat distorted for some time now. In what can only be described as a "truly bizarre" practice, crime statistics are "capped." That is, after you've been victimized 5 times, no more crime reporting for you! How do those extra two million crimes break down?
Violent crime is 82 per cent higher at 4.4 million offences compared with 2.4 million in the BCS, the survey claims, including a 156 per cent rise in " acquaintance violence" from 817,000 incidents to 2.1 million.

Domestic violence is 140 per cent higher, up from 357,000 incidents a year to 857,000, the authors said, while there are nearly three million common assaults a year rather than the 1.5 million estimated by the BCS, a rise of 98 per cent.

Burglary is 20 per cent higher than currently estimated, at 877,000 a year, and vandalism is 24 per cent higher, the report calculated.

Robbery is 7 per cent up on the official estimates, or an extra 22,000 crimes bringing the yearly total to 333,000.
So, in the context of gun crime, what's that mean in the ban-happy United Kingdom? I suppose it's hard to say, given that statistics are manipulated there. If I had to guess (and I suppose I will), I'd guess banning guns hasn't helped deter crime one iota. In fact, it would appear that it's actually had the opposite effect. I guess I'll look for some statistics to support that position...

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