The following graph shows the crime rate for the UK Courtesy Civitas:
The Civitas figures are adjusted for the different ways in which crime has been classified over the years. In this article I will present an extract of the Civitas paper then briefly consider the USA crime figures (which are lower than those in the UK then present some rather surprising figures on the effect of capital punishment.
An extract from the Civitas paper "The Failure of Britain's Police: London and New York compared":
"Crime rose rapidly in this country after 1955. That essential point, the explosion of crime from 1955-92 and the continuing historically very high level, is sometimes overlooked when ‘the rise in crime’ is taken to have started with Thatcherism. It is assumed that, as far as law-abidingness is concerned, the country would be somehow back to normal if it could return to the figures of the early 1980s. The police did indeed record ‘only’ 2.5 million crimes in England and Wales in 1980, and recorded a rise of two million crimes by 1998/99, to 4.5 million. But the starting point of 2.5 million crimes in the pre-Thatcher years was itself an astonishingly high figure by the standards of previous generations. The difficulty is not to find the numbers but for them to be believed, so incredibly small do they seem to a later generation.
In 1955, fewer than 0.5 million crimes were re-corded. In 1960, 0.8 million. In 1970, 1.6 million. In 1980, 2.5 million. In 1990, 4.4 million. The figure peaked in 1992, when 5.1 million crimes were re-corded.
8 The series is broken in 1992, when figures on a new basis included more offences as ‘crimes’. On the new basis the crime figures show a 22 per cent fall from 5.6 million in 1992 to 4.5 million in 1998/99. The series was again broken in 1998/99. The figures on the new basis of comparability show a rise from 5.1 million in 1998/99 to 5.3 million in 1999/2000, and a fall from 5.3 million in 1999/2000 to 5.2 million in 2000/01.
9 The best estimate for the latest period is that, when the difficulties of comparability are laboriously calcu-lated, there has been another ‘real’ increase of about two per cent in all crimes recorded by the police in 2001/02 as compared with 2000/01.
10 These falls in the overall crime rate since 1992, and a rise of ‘only’ two per cent last year, have been spun—and naively accepted—as a reason for congratulations all round.
11 In January 2003 a Home Office publication asserted that the chance of being a crime victim ‘remains historically low’.
12 In 1972 there was a total of 1.7 million crimes.
13 In 2002 there were 5.8 million crimes.
14 In 1972 firearms were used in the commission of 2,100 crimes; in 2001/02 firearms were used in the commission of 22,300 crimes. In 1972 handguns were used 254 times; in 2001/02, 5,900 times. In 1972 firearms were used in 570 robberies; in 2001/02 5,500 robberies. 1,970 of these 5,500 armed robberies were armed robberies on the public highway. In 1972 there were 8,900 robberies in the whole of England and Wales; in 2001/02 there were almost as many,6,500, in the London borough of Lambeth alone.
15 Our problem, then, is only partly the rise in the crime rate since the Thatcher years, ameliorated by some remission in the 1990s. It is the fundamental shift within two or three generations, and especially the enormous shift that began about 1955, in the law-abidingness and ‘policeability’ of the English."
It is interesting to compare US and English crime rates. The absolute figures are in the graphs below are open to debate but the way the figures change over time is fascinating:
Notice how the England and Wales figures just kept climbing. (The murder rate in the USA is much higher than the UK murder rate which is the only redeeming feature of the figures for England and Wales).
The homicide rate has a slightly different profile. Homicide in the UK is discussed in depth in The House of Commons paper: Homicide Statistics. The figures for murder seem to correlate with the dates at which the death penalty was abolished or, in the case of the USA, the dates when the death penalty was abolished then re-introduced. The charts below are from the House of Commons paper and the data is tabulated at the end of this article.
The abolition of the death penalty was in 1965.
The Latest Figures show that the murder rate in the USA has stabilised at about 5 per 100,000 - at the pre-moratorium level of murders (compared with about 2 per 100,000 in the UK).
If the US figures are correct then several thousand lives are saved each year by executing about 60 people a year (of whom perhaps 5 or 10 are innocent of offences that would require the death penalty). This is a dramatic deterrent effect if true.
The figures for crime in general correlate with the introduction of Television and the growth of all of the media, from music to art, in the 1950s which changed attitudes, especially those towards drugs, in both countries. It also correlates with the rise in corporatism and the destruction of local communities. To find out why, see:
The London riots and the mediocracy
The London riots - what the hell did you expect?
Do you think that blaming the rise in crime on Thatcherism is postmarxist? See:
Postmodernism-poststructuralism-postmarxism
Table of UK homicides from 1946
The Civitas figures are adjusted for the different ways in which crime has been classified over the years. In this article I will present an extract of the Civitas paper then briefly consider the USA crime figures (which are lower than those in the UK then present some rather surprising figures on the effect of capital punishment.
An extract from the Civitas paper "The Failure of Britain's Police: London and New York compared":
"Crime rose rapidly in this country after 1955. That essential point, the explosion of crime from 1955-92 and the continuing historically very high level, is sometimes overlooked when ‘the rise in crime’ is taken to have started with Thatcherism. It is assumed that, as far as law-abidingness is concerned, the country would be somehow back to normal if it could return to the figures of the early 1980s. The police did indeed record ‘only’ 2.5 million crimes in England and Wales in 1980, and recorded a rise of two million crimes by 1998/99, to 4.5 million. But the starting point of 2.5 million crimes in the pre-Thatcher years was itself an astonishingly high figure by the standards of previous generations. The difficulty is not to find the numbers but for them to be believed, so incredibly small do they seem to a later generation.
In 1955, fewer than 0.5 million crimes were re-corded. In 1960, 0.8 million. In 1970, 1.6 million. In 1980, 2.5 million. In 1990, 4.4 million. The figure peaked in 1992, when 5.1 million crimes were re-corded.
8 The series is broken in 1992, when figures on a new basis included more offences as ‘crimes’. On the new basis the crime figures show a 22 per cent fall from 5.6 million in 1992 to 4.5 million in 1998/99. The series was again broken in 1998/99. The figures on the new basis of comparability show a rise from 5.1 million in 1998/99 to 5.3 million in 1999/2000, and a fall from 5.3 million in 1999/2000 to 5.2 million in 2000/01.
9 The best estimate for the latest period is that, when the difficulties of comparability are laboriously calcu-lated, there has been another ‘real’ increase of about two per cent in all crimes recorded by the police in 2001/02 as compared with 2000/01.
10 These falls in the overall crime rate since 1992, and a rise of ‘only’ two per cent last year, have been spun—and naively accepted—as a reason for congratulations all round.
11 In January 2003 a Home Office publication asserted that the chance of being a crime victim ‘remains historically low’.
12 In 1972 there was a total of 1.7 million crimes.
13 In 2002 there were 5.8 million crimes.
14 In 1972 firearms were used in the commission of 2,100 crimes; in 2001/02 firearms were used in the commission of 22,300 crimes. In 1972 handguns were used 254 times; in 2001/02, 5,900 times. In 1972 firearms were used in 570 robberies; in 2001/02 5,500 robberies. 1,970 of these 5,500 armed robberies were armed robberies on the public highway. In 1972 there were 8,900 robberies in the whole of England and Wales; in 2001/02 there were almost as many,6,500, in the London borough of Lambeth alone.
15 Our problem, then, is only partly the rise in the crime rate since the Thatcher years, ameliorated by some remission in the 1990s. It is the fundamental shift within two or three generations, and especially the enormous shift that began about 1955, in the law-abidingness and ‘policeability’ of the English."
It is interesting to compare US and English crime rates. The absolute figures are in the graphs below are open to debate but the way the figures change over time is fascinating:
Notice how the England and Wales figures just kept climbing. (The murder rate in the USA is much higher than the UK murder rate which is the only redeeming feature of the figures for England and Wales).
The homicide rate has a slightly different profile. Homicide in the UK is discussed in depth in The House of Commons paper: Homicide Statistics. The figures for murder seem to correlate with the dates at which the death penalty was abolished or, in the case of the USA, the dates when the death penalty was abolished then re-introduced. The charts below are from the House of Commons paper and the data is tabulated at the end of this article.
The Latest Figures show that the murder rate in the USA has stabilised at about 5 per 100,000 - at the pre-moratorium level of murders (compared with about 2 per 100,000 in the UK).
If the US figures are correct then several thousand lives are saved each year by executing about 60 people a year (of whom perhaps 5 or 10 are innocent of offences that would require the death penalty). This is a dramatic deterrent effect if true.
The figures for crime in general correlate with the introduction of Television and the growth of all of the media, from music to art, in the 1950s which changed attitudes, especially those towards drugs, in both countries. It also correlates with the rise in corporatism and the destruction of local communities. To find out why, see:
The London riots and the mediocracy
The London riots - what the hell did you expect?
Do you think that blaming the rise in crime on Thatcherism is postmarxist? See:
Postmodernism-poststructuralism-postmarxism
Table of UK homicides from 1946
1946
|
347
|
1979
|
546
|
|
1947
|
371
|
1980
|
549
|
|
1978
|
341
|
1981
|
499
|
|
1949
|
298
|
1982
|
557
|
|
1950
|
346
|
1983
|
482
|
|
1952
|
328
|
1984
|
537
|
|
1952
|
400
|
1985
|
536
|
|
1953
|
327
|
1986
|
563
|
|
1954
|
311
|
1987
|
599
|
|
1955
|
279
|
1988
|
547
|
|
1956
|
315
|
1989
|
525
|
|
1957
|
321
|
1990
|
555
|
|
1958
|
261
|
1991
|
623
|
|
1959
|
266
|
1992
|
581
|
|
1960
|
282
|
1993
|
565
|
|
1961
|
265
|
1994
|
632
|
|
1962
|
299
|
1995
|
663
|
|
1963
|
307
|
1996
|
584
|
|
1964
|
296
|
1997
|
650
|
|
1965
|
325
|
1998
|
629
|
|
1966
|
364
|
1999
|
760
|
|
1967
|
414
|
2000
|
792
|
|
1968
|
420
|
2001
|
891
|
|
1969
|
395
|
2002
|
1048 (Harold Shipman killed 172)
|
|
1970
|
396
|
2003
|
853
|
|
1971
|
459
|
2004
|
868
|
|
1972
|
480
|
2005
|
765
|
|
1973
|
465
|
2006
|
759
|
|
1974
|
599
|
2007
|
753
|
|
1975
|
508
|
2008
|
651
|
|
1976
|
488
|
2009
|
||
1977
|
418
|
|||
1978
|
471
|
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