Tories misuse crime statistics despite warnings

Originally published @ 12:12 am, Sun 7th Feb 2010

The Tories' national spokesperson has been condemned by the national statistics office for misuse of government statistics. The decision by the Conservatives to keep claiming an increase in violent crime in Britain is deliberate and cited as the main plank of the case for a broken Britain. Alan Johnson challenged David Cameron on the matter last November and not received a reply. Labour changed the way it counted violent crimes offences in 2002, regarding the report of a violent crime as an instance, rather than the previous practice of letting the Police determine whether there had been an offence. Further, Labour have encouraged people to report domestic violence, so that we might expect more reports, rather necessarily more incidents. A more accurate way to track crime trends is the British Crime Survey which has been asking people if they've experienced crime. This shows a significant fall in the numbers of people experiencing violent crime. The British Crime Survey shows violent crime down by 41% since 1997. The British Crime Survey is not perfect - until very recently it didn't interview 10-15 year-olds and, obviously, it cannot talk to victims of murder. It's to be hoped that South Derbyshire Tories won't join David Cameron and their crime spokesperson in the misuse of crime statistics.