On and off for over a year now, The Slog has been interviewing local leaders, ordinary policemen, barristers, social workers and crime victims, while drilling down into UK crime statistics. This very brief resume represents the output of that process.
I can’t bring to mind any set of figures quite so meaningless, bent, massaged and misleading as UK crime statistics. Target setting, promotion ambitions, time starvation, and a sense of utter hopelessness together mean that any system based on police reporting of crime is doomed to fail as an even vague measurement of what’s actually happening on the ground. Continue reading →