A murder or a Mars Bar? (From News Shopper)

A murder or a Mars Bar?

3:12pm Friday 30th May 2008

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Green London Assembly member, Jenny Jones said yesterday there is little justification for Sir Ian Blair's £1m crime blitz and extra searches - when published police figures show violent crime is falling.

She said: "How does Operation Blunt and the extending of stop and search fit in with falling knife crime figures? How can you justify a long-term section 60 operation on the streets of London when all the crime figures are falling?

"We have heard that one negative experience for a young person can result in a permanent negative experience with the police."

The question shines a light into the gulf between the statistics and the perceived reality of people living in London - on the issue of violent crime.

Public fears are not dispelled by numbers - especially when emotive headlines about bloodshed are everywhere.

At the same time Ms Jones' question brings to mind a common-place that police figures show only reported crime and that in many cases crime goes unreported because people beleive police won't do anything about it.

Or because the violence is against people who prefer to live under the police radar.

A new report by Harriet Sargeant for the think-tank Civitas published today points to political interference, alientating the police from the public.
And making possible the kind of statistical sleight of hand shown up by Ms Jones’ question.

Government targets - set by the Home Office - are put before serving the public.

Bonuses of between £5,000 and £15,000 paid to top officers whose forces meet them, invariably result in pressure on the rank and file lower down the scale.

The report highlights a rise in “sanction detections” - a term for offences detected or cleared by charging someone, issuing a penalty notice or giving them a caution if they will admit the offence.

Section 5 of the Public Order Act which allows police to arrest anyone for 'threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour within the sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress”, means relatively innocuous offences can result in a significant “collar” - recorded in the paperwork.

Rising numbers of sanction detections give the impression that the police are waging an effective war against crime, but, as one officer interviewed in the reports said: “We are bringing more and more people to justice but they are the wrong people.”

Students who may in the past have spent a night in the cells for their drunken antics are now being arrested and end up with a Section 5 arrest and caution, visible to any future employers.

And complaints against the police are increasingly coming from law-abiding, middle-class, middle-aged and retired people who no longer feel that the police are on their side.

The result is a very skewed view of crime and policing.
As one police officer quoted in the report shockingly admits: “Arresting a child for chalking on the pavement gets a sanction detection.

“The painstaking, time-consuming work of tracking down a missing child does not.

“A child stealing a Mars bar earns the officer the same as a murder.

“Murders obviously require a lot more police time than a Mars bar.

“Officers are now reluctant to get involved in police work that does not earn a target.

“We put less effort into areas we are not judged on.”

Before the problem of violent crime on Britain’s streets can be dealt with, we need to be able to see an accurate picture of how bad the situation is.

The media obviously distort the reality in their febrile reporting of events in response to what is gauged to be the public mood.

But police crime figures that are distorted by targets set by the government - do not help.

If the police have targets they should be linked to outcomes that serve the community - and not decided by politicians.