we probably have less crime than the vikings. They were always out raping and pillaging.
Quite a few of the women used to willingly leave with the vikings as they (women)were more respected and had more power and rights in their society, plus the vikings were cleaner.
(quoted from 'Civilisation:Utopia and Tragedy' by George Frankl 1992, chapter 7)
Does that proportionately tally with adult population growth?
Nope.
Between 1911 and 1971, the popuation goes up by a third, yet offences by 71 go up four to five times the 1911 rate.
1971, population goes up just 3% to 1991, yet total offences, violence and robbery for example all skyrocket, five and six times by 1991 the rate from 1971. And twenty five times the 1911 rates in one case.
(quoted from 'Civilisation:Utopia and Tragedy' by George Frankl 1992, chapter 7)
Does that proportionately tally with adult population growth?
Nope.
Between 1911 and 1971, the popuation goes up by a third, yet offences by 71 go up four to five times the 1911 rate.
1971, population goes up just 3% to 1991, yet total offences, violence and robbery for example all skyrocket, five and six times by 1991 the rate from 1971. And twenty five times the 1911 rates in one case.
Yes, sorry, but they are old figures from a 1992 book (which I made clear). I posted them as they are an interesting pointer to rising crime rates in the 20th C.
(quoted from 'Civilisation:Utopia and Tragedy' by George Frankl 1992, chapter 7)
Does that proportionately tally with adult population growth?
Nope.
Between 1911 and 1971, the popuation goes up by a third, yet offences by 71 go up four to five times the 1911 rate.
1971, population goes up just 3% to 1991, yet total offences, violence and robbery for example all skyrocket, five and six times by 1991 the rate from 1971. And twenty five times the 1911 rates in one case.
Yes, sorry, but they are old figures from a 1992 book (which I made clear). I posted them as they are an interesting pointer to rising crime rates in the 20th C.
They are and I'm pretty sure they raised even higher too.
But if you go the other way you will find they raised 'backwards' so to speak. Crime in the late 1800's was pretty much endemic.
Or that crime is simply being reported more often now.
Chances were my fathers generation wouldn't have called the police for a fight in a pub car park unless someone got really hurt. Domestic abuse was not something you reported to the police.
It's all good and well to think of crime rates being dreadful now, but whenever I find myself lapsing into that mode I always spare a thought for those poor folks who had to live in London 200-500 years ago or thereabouts. From the sounds of it, as an ordinary citizen it was a truly ghastly time to live...
Stolen cars might be lower due to increased security but I think it is down more to people not reporting crime. Remember that every time you report a minor crime in your area your next annual insurance bill will be higher.
Stolen cars might be lower due to increased security but I think it is down more to people not reporting crime. Remember that every time you report a minor crime in your area your next annual insurance bill will be higher.
Perhaps you have worded your post wrongly so can you confirm that you are not suggesting that people who have had their cars stolen don't bother reporting it in case their insurance premium goes up next year?
The statistics do only show reported/investigated crime though, I imagine most people know someone who has been a victim of crime who hasn't either reported it or tried to report it without success.
Not in the case of the British Crime Survey. They take a pretty large sample, picked to reflect the demographic mix and geographic distribution of the population as a whole and survey individuals' experience of crime, whether it's reported or not. The results are tehn extrapolated to give an overall picture.
It's internationally recognised as a model of how to conduct soical research and get valid results.
Another thing the official figures and the BCS miss out on, is that there are certain areas which have high crime and rising, but when averaged with the low crime areas which have seen falling crime, give a distorted picture of falling overall crime, when for some the opposite is true.
I think that's possibly true. I'd be intersted to see the BCS figures broken down into force areas to see how the change for the Met or Greater Manchester compares to that for forces which cover mixed rural/urban areas.
We're living in a stupid country, I was watching Sunday Morning Live today (how the hell can someone have sympathy for a murderer?).
I'll take a shot at answering that.
A child is rape and murdered and the suspect is inexplicably acquitted despite strong evidence suggesting guilt. The child's father beats the suspect to death and is convicted of murder. Sympathy?
A woman suffers years of domestic abuse and one day she snaps and stabs her sleeping husband to death. She is convicted of murder. Sympathy?
Murderers tend not to be a different species to the rest of us.
i'm not convinced by those bemoaning the state of britain today with their "broken britain" nonsense. there was plenty of warfare between gangs in past generations. mods and rockers once fought huge battles with chains, knives and guns. paedophile uncles/vicars were quietly ignored by local communities, policemen happily joined the bigots who attacked homosexuals and blacks, and serial killers carried out their gruesome crimes with far greater ease.
Very true.
I can sympathise with those who long for the days when a copper would send a lad home with a clip round the ear, but if that was allowed there'd be no way of reining in coppers with unreasonable prejudices, whether against black kids or boys with hoodies and staffordshire bull terriers.
Or that crime is simply being reported more often now.
Chances were my fathers generation wouldn't have called the police for a fight in a pub car park unless someone got really hurt. Domestic abuse was not something you reported to the police.
And so on.
Very true, and a point I was going to make myself.
Insurance is another factor that has led to increased reporting. More people have insurance these days, and if they get burgled or mugged, they need a crime number to claim.
Stolen cars might be lower due to increased security but I think it is down more to people not reporting crime.
I can't imagine many people not reporting a stolen car. If it was caught on a speed camera, you'd have trouble proving you weren't driving, you'd be liable for any parking tickets and if it was used in a crime (as stolen cars often are), you'd be a suspect.
A lady I used to work with was convinced her car had been used while she was at work. It wasn't in quite the same postion in the car park, and the mileage was about 50 miles more than when she left it. She reported it and the police treated her like a nutty old lady (she was just coming up for retirement).
They had to eat their words the following day, when they disclosed it had been used in a building society robbery 24 miels away and wanted to go over it for forensic purposes. :rolleyes:
For my work I do a lot of research reading 19thC newspapers, and crime reports are very graphic often and absolutely everywhere.
Child abductions were rife - so much so they got maybe one column inch, not massive stories. Crimes against the person, eg rape and even paedophilia, got laughably short sentences - a couple of months' hard labour, that kind of thing. But then stealing property/money - things to the value of just a few shillings - got lengthy sentences. The corrolary of this was, people were reluctant to even report crime or pursue the criminals as many people wouldn;t want a 7 year old being transported for scrumping apples, on their conscience and will say so, if matters came to court.
I was researching a case recently where a fisherlad was starved, humiliated and tortured to death by the vessel's captain aided and abetted by all aboard, including several teenage lads. The lads walked free. (Captain hung). One of the lads in particular seemed as brutal as the captain but because he was only young, they let him walk free rather than hang him.
As some laws were so draconian, more people escaped justice than would, now with people not wanting to press charges.
I found an 1888 case from the same enwspaper they reported a Ripper murder, of a man who literally stamped his mother to death and threatened to murder a servant, who he kept hostage. She watched him as, over a period of several hours, he literally stamped his mother to pieces. You'd think, "1888 - theyr'e going to hang him" right? No - he got sent to an asylum instead and I found him on the 1891 Census in Broadmoor. They felt it was immediately obvious he was mentally ill, so hanging him was never at issue.
Lots of the stuff I've found challenges our stereotypes about the past somehow being cosy and safe and capital punishment being a deterrent. It wasn't and it isn't.
It seems now that there is more 'general on the street crime'. Meaning, violence, theft, burglary, drugs, drug related crimes, cars being stolen, broken in to, yard equipment being stolen, garden shed being ransacked.
Dont the most recent statistics show that lots of crimes (many of which you have listed) are in fact at their lowest level for decades:
Comments
The British Crime Survey statistics include both reported and unreported crimes and those too suggest that crime is falling.
Quite a few of the women used to willingly leave with the vikings as they (women)were more respected and had more power and rights in their society, plus the vikings were cleaner.
1938--21,800
1947--24,700
1961--52,800
1980--200,000
1981--206,000
1990--509,000
Total indictable offences of violence against the person in Great Britain:
1971--47,000
1982--100,200
1983--108,700
1987--130,000
1988--151,000
1989--178,000
1990--185,000
Total indictable offences of robbery in Great Britain:
1971--7500
1982--20300
1983--22000
1987--27000
1988--30000
1990--36200
(quoted from 'Civilisation:Utopia and Tragedy' by George Frankl 1992, chapter 7)
Does that proportionately tally with adult population growth?
Nope.
Between 1911 and 1971, the popuation goes up by a third, yet offences by 71 go up four to five times the 1911 rate.
1971, population goes up just 3% to 1991, yet total offences, violence and robbery for example all skyrocket, five and six times by 1991 the rate from 1971. And twenty five times the 1911 rates in one case.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Z...page&q&f=false
(pg 362)
Population of Britain:
1911: 40.8 million
1971: 54.4 million
1991: 56.2 million
Do they pillage them too?
So crime IS indeed on the UP !!!
Those stats end 20 years ago
Thanks for getting that information, it's interesting reading. My initial feeling seems to have been right about crime rising over the generations.
They are and I'm pretty sure they raised even higher too.
But if you go the other way you will find they raised 'backwards' so to speak. Crime in the late 1800's was pretty much endemic.
Or that crime is simply being reported more often now.
Chances were my fathers generation wouldn't have called the police for a fight in a pub car park unless someone got really hurt. Domestic abuse was not something you reported to the police.
And so on.
Perhaps you have worded your post wrongly so can you confirm that you are not suggesting that people who have had their cars stolen don't bother reporting it in case their insurance premium goes up next year?
Not in the case of the British Crime Survey. They take a pretty large sample, picked to reflect the demographic mix and geographic distribution of the population as a whole and survey individuals' experience of crime, whether it's reported or not. The results are tehn extrapolated to give an overall picture.
It's internationally recognised as a model of how to conduct soical research and get valid results.
I think that's possibly true. I'd be intersted to see the BCS figures broken down into force areas to see how the change for the Met or Greater Manchester compares to that for forces which cover mixed rural/urban areas.
I'll take a shot at answering that.
A child is rape and murdered and the suspect is inexplicably acquitted despite strong evidence suggesting guilt. The child's father beats the suspect to death and is convicted of murder. Sympathy?
A woman suffers years of domestic abuse and one day she snaps and stabs her sleeping husband to death. She is convicted of murder. Sympathy?
Murderers tend not to be a different species to the rest of us.
Very true.
I can sympathise with those who long for the days when a copper would send a lad home with a clip round the ear, but if that was allowed there'd be no way of reining in coppers with unreasonable prejudices, whether against black kids or boys with hoodies and staffordshire bull terriers.
Very true, and a point I was going to make myself.
Insurance is another factor that has led to increased reporting. More people have insurance these days, and if they get burgled or mugged, they need a crime number to claim.
I can't imagine many people not reporting a stolen car. If it was caught on a speed camera, you'd have trouble proving you weren't driving, you'd be liable for any parking tickets and if it was used in a crime (as stolen cars often are), you'd be a suspect.
A lady I used to work with was convinced her car had been used while she was at work. It wasn't in quite the same postion in the car park, and the mileage was about 50 miles more than when she left it. She reported it and the police treated her like a nutty old lady (she was just coming up for retirement).
They had to eat their words the following day, when they disclosed it had been used in a building society robbery 24 miels away and wanted to go over it for forensic purposes. :rolleyes:
Child abductions were rife - so much so they got maybe one column inch, not massive stories. Crimes against the person, eg rape and even paedophilia, got laughably short sentences - a couple of months' hard labour, that kind of thing. But then stealing property/money - things to the value of just a few shillings - got lengthy sentences. The corrolary of this was, people were reluctant to even report crime or pursue the criminals as many people wouldn;t want a 7 year old being transported for scrumping apples, on their conscience and will say so, if matters came to court.
I was researching a case recently where a fisherlad was starved, humiliated and tortured to death by the vessel's captain aided and abetted by all aboard, including several teenage lads. The lads walked free. (Captain hung). One of the lads in particular seemed as brutal as the captain but because he was only young, they let him walk free rather than hang him.
As some laws were so draconian, more people escaped justice than would, now with people not wanting to press charges.
I found an 1888 case from the same enwspaper they reported a Ripper murder, of a man who literally stamped his mother to death and threatened to murder a servant, who he kept hostage. She watched him as, over a period of several hours, he literally stamped his mother to pieces. You'd think, "1888 - theyr'e going to hang him" right? No - he got sent to an asylum instead and I found him on the 1891 Census in Broadmoor. They felt it was immediately obvious he was mentally ill, so hanging him was never at issue.
Lots of the stuff I've found challenges our stereotypes about the past somehow being cosy and safe and capital punishment being a deterrent. It wasn't and it isn't.
Dont the most recent statistics show that lots of crimes (many of which you have listed) are in fact at their lowest level for decades:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/15/crime-figures-fall-bcs-survey