London murder rate overtakes New York

Werewolfs

Strawmanning. I'm not saying that we can continue to cut (and police budgets are now going up not down anyway) but it's undeniable that over a sustained period we saw significant cuts in funding and crime.

EarthRod

According to the Institute for Government on Police there are 14% fewer officers than in 2009. Also police records show that there was an increase of 18% in violent crime.

rustybin

An increase of 18% from when? I highly doubt it is from 2009 to now.

Here are my sources. Where are yours?


www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39817100
Until 2016, the survey did not include fraud and cyber crime. If you exclude those crimes in order to compare like with like, then between 2010 and 2016, crime fell by 35%.

Police funding in England and Wales
Police funding fell from 2010/11 to 2015/16
That’s according to estimates compiled by the National Audit Office. Overall funding fell by 18%, taking inflation into account.

rustybin

Wheres all the outrage from Black Lives Matter
Or is it just when its done by whitey.

rustybin

Read the BBC article and it shows the Institute for Government figures are quite correct. It states in the BBC article:

Ms Long-Bailey is using police recorded crime to arrive at a 19% increase in violent crime in a year. About half of those recorded offences did not result in injury.

Police recorded crime is a good measure of offences that are well-reported to the police but their accuracy has been called into question in recent years because of changes in methodology and they are no longer designated as national statistics.

I prefer police records over the Office for National Statistics because ONS statistics are just that - government statistics.

Oops, forget the enlarged fonts - oh well...

rustybin

Assuming violent crime reduced at the same rate as general crime from 2010 to 2016 - 35%.

An 18% increase is still a long way below the figure from 2010. With a smaller, more efficient police force.

Incidentally, I was amused at you defending using police figures after you quoted why they are not considered good enough to be national statistics.

Fred Quimby

And now it would appear that crime is going up.

Your statistics suggest that there is a direct link between cutting budgets and reducing crime, so May is clearly missing a trick. Cut the Police budget by 100% and cut out crime in a single stroke. It's almost too easy.

rustybin

My statistics don't suggest that. That's purely your strawmanning again.

But they completely contradict your earlier assertion that reducing police budgets means more crime. Apparently it's not rocket science, so I'm sure you can explain it.

nabby

No they don't. It might show that there's been an 18% reduction over 6 years and crime fell by 35%. What are the figures over 6 and half years? 7? 10? I'm saying people can fiddle the statistics anyway they please. Over the last 12 months it could be that crime had risen by 95%. The beauty of statistics.

I've already acknowledged that you can make cuts to the police and reduce crime. Of course you can. Being pedantic, you could cut a budget by 0.05% and it might have 0% impact. There has got to be a breaking point though - a sweet spot.  Now that is rocket science, and personally I want a Govt that will err on the side of caution in finding that sweet spot rather than one that keeps cutting until people die and a generation of children are broken by austerity.

I'm saying that a prolonged programme of cuts across the board of any industry or business will eventually lead to a reduction of effectiveness. Whether that be more deaths in hospitals, longer waiting times in A&E, increase of crime, increased class sizes in schools, longer waiting on the phone to a call-centre - whatever.

rustybin

So... your earlier assertion was not correct. Glad we've cleared that up.

The spending review in 2015 pledged to protect police budgets in real terms to 2019/20

So in the 6 year period budgets fell,  crime dropped. And in the more recent period with budgets protected, it is rising again.

It's almost as if crime was more complex than how much you spend on the police.