January 02, 2005
Crime, Policing, and Redefining History
The independent think tank Civitas has published the same conclusion that I reached a long time ago: Britain has some of the worst policing in the world. When you combine this with one of the highest crime rates in the developed world, the results are not good.
There are more than twice as many police officers today as there were in 1921. That's good, except that there are 57 times as many crimes committed today. The most spectacular rises have been in the post-war era. From the mid-1950s to the end of the '60s crime rose three-fold. By the end of the next decade, the numbers of crimes had almost doubled again.
Some areas of crime have been particularly profitable for perpitrators. In 1964 there were 3,000 robberies. Forty years later there were 101,000. That 30:1 ratio for outstrips the five household burglaries for every one in 1964.
Though it cites the change in attitude toward policing as a significant factor, the Civitas researchers, Norman Dennis and George Erdos, correctly find the root of the problem is in the amorality of this society. "A society on a large scale or a small scale ceases to exist when its members lose the capacity to agree on what facts are true and what conduct is good". It is no surprise that the police suffer from this same lack of moral compass.
This does not explain why equally amoral France and Germany do a better job of tackling crime. The best this Government can do is ignore the numbers before they came to power in 1997 and trumpet any reduction in crime they can achieve by manipulating the numbers, classifying and reclassifying offences. Any claim that crime is at historically low levels can only be based on the narrowest and shortest-term definition of history possible.
Yes, technically, yesterday is "history". As I write this, I still haven't had breakfast, so you could say that I'm eating at an historically low level. My calorie intake has dropped so dramatically in the last eight hours you would think I'm nearly starving. None of this changes the fact that I'm a fat bloater. Big as a house.
What the Government want to avoid at any cost is the obvious connection between the problem and their own social and moral policies. They cannot acknowledge that their assault on every institution which inculcates morality, especially the family, will necessarily result in a continuing disintegration into chaos.