Crime in Britain in 2003 (Or "How to Create a Violent Society")
Crime and Punishment
| January 23, 2004
| Tim
The US is a violent, crime-ridden society whose citizens (if you believe Michael Moore) cower in fear behind locked doors in gated communities. Meanwhile, other countries, such as England, Canada, Germany and France have peaceful, safe societies due to their "enlightened" social policies.
Oh really?
If you agreed with that statement, wake up and smell the coffee, dear reader. Here are the 2001 Interpol statistics showing number of crimes per 100,000 people in these countries; note where the US falls:
9927 - England and Wales
8572 - Canada
7736 - Germany
6941 - France
4161 - United States
Yes, intrepid reader, that's right. Half as much crime in the US as in Merrie Olde England or Canada.
In particular, crime has risen sharply and continually in England since it instituted a complete gun ban in 1997. Since then, appallingly, crime has doubled!
For example, in 2002 alone, the English saw a 9% increase in overall crime, a 35% increase in gun crimes and a 28% increase in "personal violence". In 2002, your chances of being mugged in London were six times higher than in New York.
So how has 2003 been shaping up? No terribly good. According to the not-always-trusted** British Crime Survey (BCS), there's been another 14% rise in violent crime overall with an 18% rise in the most serious types of violence. Gun violence figures have dropped very slightly, but police say it's due to increasing use of poor-quality weapons, while the Sun reports: "There was also a huge 46 per cent jump in the use of replica weapons to 1,815 incidents."
Regarding the aforemention Interpol stats, the Sun updates them thusly:
Britain dominates the top five in the crime league of Western countries, with only Sweden above them. England and Wales have 10,608 crimes for every 100,000 citizens, followed by Scotland and Northern Ireland with 8,315. Germany has 7,734, France 6,880 and America — known for violent crime — just 4,157.
(Ah yes. Lovely, safe Sweden, the socialist paradise. Scary, crime-ridden, bankrupt Sweden, actually.)
If one wants to look for the bright side, Brits can focus on a 1% drop in crime overall, a 2% drop in domestic burglary, and a 5% drop in stolen cars. Of course, in my world, a 1-2% drop translates as "business as normal; no significant change." Especially if one is already living amongst astronomical crime levels.
So what's next?
There have been calls for more gated communities (of the type Michael Moore stereotypically depicts Americans as living in), and attempts to restrict alcohol use, "replica" guns (think toys, and the cigarette lighter in The Pink Panther).
And of course, harsher gun laws with stiffer sentences for those found possessing a banned weapon. (If something isn't working, do more of it!) Law enforcement and crime figures are, understandably, not impressed:
New laws that make carrying a firearm an offence with a mandatory five-year sentence have won little favour with officers on the street. 'It changes nothing,' said one drug squad detective who asked to remain anonymous. 'Most of the kids carry guns in order to protect themselves when they are dealing. They are going around with enough crack or heroin to ensure that they go away for 10 years if they get caught. Because of that, they feel they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by carrying a gun. They carry them just for the hell of it.'
Notorious underworld figure Joey Pyle agrees. 'In the old days, during the time of the Krays and the Richardsons, people didn't go around with guns on them all the time. You only got tooled up if you were out on a bit of work. That's all changed now. For a lot of people out there, having a gun is little more than a fashion accessory.'
As I've said before, the Brits are conducting a fascinating little controlled experiment with their country and self-defense and gun-control laws. It'll be interesting to see how these next couple measure work out. But regardless, my sympathy extends to UK citizens who have apparently had enough of this silliness and want a change to the laws.
Further Reading: See "Targeting a Myth", which originally appeared in the Boston Globe.
* Idea for using Interpol stats comes from this "Useful Fools" article on US/European/Canadian crime.
** The BCS simply asks people how crime is going, in contrast which actual crime figures recorded by police. My own observation is that the BCS typically comes in with lower numbers than those recorded: See this article for such an example -- the police record a 12% increase in violence, but the BCS somehow comes up with a 5% decrease in violence during the exact same period.
UPDATE: Dec 3, 2004 - Interpol has now removed this data from public view!
This is just another opportunity for Ignorant Americans to attack Britain's gun laws. Do you really think that giving people guns is going to reduce crime? What kind of idiot are you? Guns=death! And as for sweden, you cant possibly suggest that it is crime ridden? Sweden???
its easy for types like you to go around criticising.
America and britain are 2 very different places, you cant just go around expecting things to be and to work the same just because we both speak english.
If criminals want to get guns, they will get guns. So you might as well allow the citizens the right to own guns and protect themselves.
and
You saw how well the prohibition of alcohol worked for us (United States) back in the 30's.
Britain with 62 Gun Crime Deaths and falling compared to 10,000 in America.
Britain with 839 Homocides and falling compared to 15,000 in America
Britain with 43,500 Serious Assaults compared to 800,000 in America.
Britain is one of the safest countries in the entire world, and Americas population (300m) is only five times greater than the UK (60m), so just times the UK figures by five to get the figure America would have if crime there was as low as here.
The UK does not record Simple Assaults in it's FBI Uniform Crime Report. More than half UK Violent Crime results in no injury at the rest is 90% minor trivial violence.
The UK has also adopted a new way of compiling it's statistics which have added 25% to it's rate of crime and there is also numerous examples of the same crime being recorded in the figures numerous times or a person being charged with numerous offences for the one crime.
It's statistics that can't be trusted especially in relation to International Crime Comparisons.
The two links below offer a useful insight in to UK Crime Figures.
and .
Geordie,
You're out of your mind. Do you know the first thing about crime stats? You have to divide them by the total number of people sampled in order to find the crime rate. You can't just report two totals for two totally different-sized countries.
Look, let's say I had eight people in my family. And there were only four of us murdered in a year. According to your logic, it's safer to be in my family than in the UK! After all, we only had four murders, and the UK had 839!
Good heavens people! Let's be a bit less gullible, okay?
Another tip-off: Some people focus on "gun crime deaths" or "gun crimes". Why? Because gun control doesn't reduce crime overall -- but it does somewhat reduce gun-related crimes. The idea is, I guess, that we're supposed to be deeply concerned when a woman is killed with a gun, but that her death is not a big deal as long as a knife or strangulation cord (garotte) was the murder weapon.
Such language is a tip-off that you're dealing with a person who is more worried about controlling "guns" than crime. Me, I want whatever produces less crime in each category, whether that means more guns or fewer. I don't feel better if we have "gun" crimes in each category, but more overall.
But some apparently do.
Finally, yes, the murder rate is higher in the US than the UK, but the overall crime rate certainly is not. (And most murders in the US are, sadly, black-on-black crime, so we're looking at a few small troubled areas, not a general trend through all of American society.) Sadly, from the coverage, it seems the UK's crime wave is not concentrated geographically, but rather is hitting British society at all levels.
My point isn't to run down Brits. My point is to demonstrate that Labor's policies are actually increasing crime, and hopefully dissuade people both here and in the UK to favor other ideas.
If you go to the UN figures you'll discover that the 3 countries with the highest crime rates are Dominica, New Zealand and Finland. New Zealand and Finland also have lowest levels of corruption and the most efficient public services.
As the UN report states high reported crime rates are more often a reflection of police efficiency and trustworthiness than an accurate reflection of the number of crimes committed.
A classic example is DUI in the USA compared with the UK. The number of over the limit people killed in accidents in the US is 3 times that of the UK, but the UK has a high number of prosecutions, higher alcohol consumption much more liberal drink laws and a much higher number of convictions. . . .
Go figure. . ..
Albanaich
P.Hatfield brings up a good point....the UK and US are indeed very different places, our common language notwithstanding.
With respect to the subject at hand (crime), Britain has fully caved to the criminal, becoming a culture of victimization. Self-defense is all but prohibited.....and there is such a thing as fighting back "too much" in response to criminal offenses that can land the victim themselves in jail. Guns were all but fully banned after the Snowdrop Appeal (and what wasn't banned doesn't figure into self-defense because they must be unloaded and in no circumstance are they legal to use for self-defense, no matter the urgency), representing not the last but certainly among the most significant concessions to predators. Despite the utter failure of gun control in the UK, legislators seem to want to expand the scope of failure and ban "pointy kitchen knives", replicas of firearms, and other evilness. Meanwhile, offenders are getting warnings and no jail time for a variety of offenses, to include sexual assault (15 year old use a knife to assault a female and got a warning) and auto burglary.
Geordie tried hard to fudge the numbers, but the fact of the matter is the UK/Wales has the highest per capita rate of violent crime in the world....this from the gun-hating UN. On top of that, even the British media has accused the Home Office of fudging the numbers to avoid alarming the citizenry any further, meaning we probably don't know the scale. What we DO know is that citizens have no rights and in fact consequences when it comes to self-defense, and that criminals have very little to fear from meek citizens lacking the means and spirit to resist, unarmed police, and unwilling prosecutors.
Meanwhile, in the Wild West US where I live, I enjoy the rights of a CITIZEN, not a subject. I can and do take my welfare into my OWN hands, and carry a 9mm SIG Sauer. The US is not perfect but we (largely) recogize the basic human right to self-defense. The "enlightened" British couldn't do a worse job recognizing that right.
Just wanted to mention; the murder rate is one of the better indicators of overall crime. Other crimes differ wildly based on reporting variations, as mentioned earlier. But with murder, a body is a body.
Though Tim had a good point that in America, murders (and thus quite possibly other types of crime as well) are highly clustered.
I agree with Sieg, you wont get arrested for defending yourself here in the US....you'll just get sued out of your mind. Also, there's a crap load of laws revolving around knives to the point where you need a lawyer to tell you if you can carry one or not. And the simplest way to compare the two societies: which city would you rather walk through at night, London or Los Angeles? (they are both sister cities)
As the saying goes, 85% of statistics are made up...
From my own personal experiences as a photographer, the most frightening place I have ever been was the Ibrox/Govan area of Glasgow. I have taken photos in the some of the world's roughest places - Beirut, Lagos, Bogota, San Salvador, Anacostia (Washington DC) etc, but a recent assignment in Glasgow was the only time I have ever had to abandon ship and put the camera away - and this was at six in the evening! Perhaps the locals could sniff out that I was English, who knows, but the level of intimidation was astonishing. I have no idea what the stats say about Scotland's largest city, but my anecdotal evidence would suggest that perhaps there is some truth to the UN figures after all.
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This is just another opportunity for Ignorant Americans to attack Britain's gun laws. Do you really think that giving people guns is going to reduce crime? What kind of idiot are you? Guns=death! And as for sweden, you cant possibly suggest that it is crime ridden? Sweden???
its easy for types like you to go around criticising.
America and britain are 2 very different places, you cant just go around expecting things to be and to work the same just because we both speak english.
Posted by: P Hatfield on September 8, 2005 06:02 PM