Violent crime falling says new study
New figures released today have thrown an incendiary into the election debate on violent crime.
Analysis of hospital data for England and Wales, by academics at Cardiff University [191KB PDF], shows there were 64,000 fewer violence-related attendances in emergency departments last year than in 2001 - a fall of just over 15%.
This contrasts with Conservative claims that violent crime has increased by 44% since 2002. It also appears to contradict Liberal Democrat analysis that hospital admissions for assault are rising.
The figures from the Cardiff study neatly track the downward trend in violence identified by the British Crime Survey (BCS), adding new weight to the argument that, for most people, England and Wales are less violent places than they were a decade ago.
The BCS, which identifies more than twice as many crimes as the recorded statistics, asks more than 40,000 people each year about their experiences of violence and is regarded as the best measure of crime trends. It suggests the number of victims of violence has halved since 1995.
Police records of violence are thought more unreliable because they are affected by people's willingness to report crimes, police activity and changes to methodology.
However, today's report does also refer to a recent decline in recorded violence.
"Violence recorded by the police; 'violence against the person', fell six per cent between 2007/08 and 2008/09, to the lowest figure since 2002/03.9 Violence against the person with and without injury both fell between 2007/08 and 2008/09 to their lowest levels since 2002/03. It is recognised however, that police records are an unreliable measure of violence."
The Cardiff data is more encouraging news that, whatever many people may imagine, the risk of being a victim of violence has declined for most people and is currently stable.
The research, based on a study of 44 Emergency Departments (ED), suggests that "an estimated 350,010 people attended EDs in England and Wales for treatment following violence in 2009; 1,500 fewer than in 2008". The figure for 2001 was in excess of 410,000.
The Conservatives claim that violent crime has risen substantially is extrapolated from a House of Commons study [108KB PDF] into the impact of changes to the recording system on police figures.
The research document has only looked at the effect for one year and tells readers that "no estimate has been made of the effect on the number of crimes recorded in subsequent years as changes continued to be bedded in".
This may help to explain why this piece of work contradicts the fall in violent crime identified by the BCS.
On yesterday's Daily Politics Election Debate programme, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said this:
"If you look at the individual figures coming out of the NHS Accident and Emergency Departments, they are actually showing an increase in the number of people admitted for woundings and that's something that's hard to explain away."
The Liberal Democrats have done their own analysis of NHS data to claim that hospital admissions for violence have increased "more than 3%" between 2007/08 and 2008/09. The original data can be found here.
This may reflect the slight rise in violent incidents identified in the Cardiff graph for that period, but it misses the downward trend over the longer term.
Violent crime remains a significant problem in Britain - almost 1,000 people on an average day attending hospital following a violent incident is much too high. But the study shows that violence varies significantly across the week.
There's more than twice the violence on a Saturday compared with a Wednesday which suggests that alcohol plays a big part in the problem.
One population group has seen in increase in violent injury in the past year but it is not, as one might imagine, young men. It is small children - perhaps reflecting an aspect of the violent crime debate which is not much discussed.
"Violence affecting those aged 0 to 10 years increased by 8% compared to 2008", today's report finds, suggesting that child abuse is a factor.
However the fact that overall violence is on the decline should not detract our society from the need to do everything we can to reduce it still further.
I'm 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~43~RS~)
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What this suggests is that most people's idea of a 'violent crime' isn't that violent.
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Another example that Labour hasn't done everything wrong.
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Stabbings being reported are falling yet being admissions to hospital with stab wounds are rising...... only under Labour.
This must be why I keep being told I'm getting richer, yet week after week food, petrol and general living prices keep on rising (Red Peppers were 50p in 2007, 90p this week!).
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This shows that the Daily mail mentality that we are living in "Broken Britain" and that crime is high and rising is wrong. But I bet if you asked anyone who reads the Daily Mail whether they thought crime had halved they will believe the paper rather than the figures. The media has got a lot to answer for in its reporting of crime and the effect on public opinion. I bet this will be reflected in a high number of comments to this story as well as a large number of correspondents will prefer to peddle the media lies rather than believe actual studies and subsequent crime figures.
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"Violence affecting those aged 0 to 10 years increased by 8% compared to 2008", today's report finds, suggesting that child abuse is a factor.
From the report, that group represents 431 incident reports, an increase of about 40 incidents in 2009 from 2008. That may be significant, or it may be statistical fluctuation.
As for it "suggesting child abuse" - how so? There's nothing in the report that describes the circumstances of the incidents. The figures may well include incidents of playground violence and bullying: deplorable enough, but not usually considered as "child abuse".
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How strangely convenient! Lies, damn lies and statistics?
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One person's "brawl", "barney", or "tiff" may be someone else's "violent crime". If it is true more attendancies at A&E are occuring than before this is surely a more robust indicator. People wuld surely become less likely to see somthing happening as being violent if it was a common occurance? Football violence seemed to be so commonplace at one time for example that supporters grew accusomed to minor levels we would not accept today. I think some of the assumptions made here need much coser scrutiny.
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Having been mugged in 2002, and not since, this would accord with my personal experience ! The data presented - and the reaction to it above -puts me in mind of the most irritating thing about our poiticial system: when it comes to an election we are bombarded with entirely one sided arguments which are presented by the other side as consisting entirely of lies. I find this completely useless in helping me make my mind up about who I want to vote for - you might as well get a bunch of four year olds to make a rational argument one way or the other. You could produce a graph that showed that Gordon Brown was in fact the son of God and it would make absolutely no difference whatsoever to Mr Dortman above for example. Bring on a hung parliament and perhaps we might force politicians to concede that there may be merit in someone else's point of view, and get them to start acting like adults who try to reach consensus and don't just slag eachother off all the time. In what other area of public life do individuals have to be right the first time they speak on any subject, never deviate from a single opinion they have voiced, ignore all evidence that contradicts their opinions, and never concede that anyone else (other than their mates) has got or ever had a single good idea - apart from ones they've nicked?
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Just goes to show that one of the major things Broken in Britain is the record of the right who'd like to make us think that things are always worse than they really are.
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4. At 5:16pm on 21 Apr 2010, MF wrote:
This shows that the Daily mail mentality that we are living in "Broken Britain" and that crime is high and rising is wrong.
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So all of those stabbings and shooting going on in London and other places are a figment of our imagination?
Likewise towncentres up and down the country become no go areas late at night at the week ends due to the binge drinking mentality and drunken violence encouraged by this government.
Yes I believe this is a broken society and I lay the blame four square at the door of this failed, hypocritical and lying government.
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"Police records of violence are thought more unreliable because they are affected by people's willingness to report crimes, police activity and changes to methodology." ... and also because the police deliberately fail to record (conceal) offences.
Be cautious about saying child violence went up. Following baby P it is entirely possible that the number of children coming in to A&E has not changed, but doctors have a greater tendency to label the injuries as caused by violence.
There are now 83,000 people in prison - up from about 60,000 when labour came in to power. One of the big changes has been 'IPP' which allows judges to give out an indeterminate sentence if they think the offender if dangerous. Not everyone in prison should be there, but it is fairly reasonable to say that while they are actually in the jail they are not committing violent crimes on the street.
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One of the saddest facts in recent years is not only the number of children who are the victims of violent crime but also the number who COMMIT them. Ask any teacher!
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10, the problem with the Daily Mail mentality, is they've been saying the same thing, about the same subject, for at least 100 years.
'Britain going to the dogs', 'out of control youth', all the usual stuff.
Yet they hanker after 'the good old days'.
(There I go, expecting a shred of consistency from them!)
Even before then, Victorian London was awash with violence and was prostitute central - many very underage.
Binge drinking? What about the era of the gin epidemic?
However much crime has gone up, or down, in the past 30 years, it cannot match surely the some 300% increase in the media coverage of it, both in news and drama, in the same period.
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Mark
You wouldn't by any chance be voting labour again this time would you?
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You are like a dog with a bone Mr Easton.
I can think of simple reasons why A&E "violent injury" crimes have been reduced. Is it because recipients may be saying that their injuries are non-violent related because they don't want the police involved, don't want to wait forever while they attend, or don't want reprisals from whoever committed the "crime"?
Of course there is also the chance that records are not being kept accurately because there has been a reduction in staff levels. Statistics are statistics not facts.
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I just saw a flying pig! I would not walk in my city center on a saturday night even if i had a AK47 at hand. Crime down unemployment down etc etc until i turn on the tv or read the newspaper. ALL LIES cooked up by a failed government.
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For once we get some good news, and why can't we just accept it? The opposition will try to claim the opposite, and Labour will spin and lie - it doesn't need to be political, it's not our politicians who control these events, but changes in society
Violence is still incredibly high on weekends (as glamorgan notes) - that's shown in the figures! But it is down overall, and I would agree based on my own experiences, some places are bad, particularly on certain nights, but with improved security in many walks of life - far less football-related violence, for example it's not hard to see that violent crime is down a bit - it doesn't mean Labour are fixing anything and that we have to belittle it simply for the sake of party politics, I want my government to respond to real issues, not be forced to make knee-jerk reactions on the whim of the daily mail
Good hard facts and real debate, like Mark provides, are what we need - and in this case the evidence is good, you can (rightly) dispute police figures, but A&Es? Are stab victims supposed to be walking it off?
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10, the problem is that the Government's own figures show violent crime is falling, while knife crime has been a constant 4% of that total - i.e. the Government's own stats show knife crime has been falling! When I (and Mark E as well, I think) challenged them, they refused to respond but soon after came out of the hole claiming their figures under represented knife crime among teenagers ... but it's the devil's own job to get them to give a full and frank explanation as to how they arrive at that conclusion of knife crime being on the rise. Yet the other two parties seem to collude with them in this fraud! If there is a problem, then, the cause will probably be that the political parties hype has scared young people into carrying knives because they've been persuaded there us a greater risk of them being knifed by someone else!
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"Mark
You wouldn't by any chance be voting labour again this time would you?"
Exactly, hardly an un-biased statemant, the fact that labour could be raising the bar as to what constitutues as violent crime suggests that even though less is reported, as its ignored/put into a lower catogry therefore results seems lower.
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10. At 6:39pm on 21 Apr 2010, Kentucker wrote:
So all of those stabbings and shooting going on in London and other places are a figment of our imagination?
Likewise towncentres up and down the country become no go areas late at night at the week ends due to the binge drinking mentality and drunken violence encouraged by this government.
Yes I believe this is a broken society and I lay the blame four square at the door of this failed, hypocritical and lying government.
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The graph doesn't say violence has stopped just that there is less of it.
Why do you want to go into a town centre at 2 o clock in the morning? At least their idea of a good time is getting drunk which. 30 years ago you went to football matches specifiaclly to start fights, who lives in broken Britian now? At least noone goes out planning to stat a fight.
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Those of you who agree with this disingenuous article, may one day face the truth first hand. I do hope you remember when and IF you recover from a robbery, mugging, terrorist incident etc... the statistical nonsense printed here!
in light
supajohnny
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A dreadfully flawed article that falls within the first few paragraphs.
"Analysis of hospital data for England and Wales... shows there were 64,000 fewer violence-related attendances in emergency departments last year."
Who is designating an admission to an ER as being caused by violent crime? I'd guess that 80% of attendees say their injuries were caused by anything other than violent crime simply to avoid any possible involvement with the police or to avoid the embarrassment of being seen as a victim.
And, as should be paramount in any publication of any set of statistics, particularly during an election, can we discover who funded this specific research? After all, as the old adage says, he who pays the piper usually calls the tune.
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Glasmorgan @ 16
"I just saw a flying pig! I would not walk in my city center on a saturday night even if i had a AK47 at hand. Crime down unemployment down etc etc until i turn on the tv or read the newspaper. ALL LIES cooked up by a failed government.
Are you reading the same article? There are too many faults in your short statement to highlight at such an early hour but could I strongly suggest you read the article again? Your comment suggests it's the last thing you've done! Away with you until you come back with reasoned, informed arguement.
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Yeah! violent crime has dropped because organized criminals realized it was easier to stay at home in front of a computer screen and rob a nation of its wealth. No mess to clean up either.
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When a steel helmet became standard equipment issue in the trenches of WW1, the number of men admitted to field hospitals suffering from head wounds INCREASED, which puzzled a lot of people...
... until they realised that prior to universal wearing of a 'tin bin' most people shot in the head died outright.
Pure numbers don't tell the whole story, you have to understand what they are saying.
I do a sequence of slides with my computing students. The first says "1.17" - it's data, but pretty meaningless.
The second says "1.17kg" - now we have a bit more detail, it's a weight.
The third shows a picture of my daughter as a baby - it was her birth weight. Now we have some information, we can use that initial "1.17" to interpret what's going on... but only once we add the external information that 1.17kg is a very low birthweight (my daughter was a premature birth). [For those who prefer 'old money' that's about 2lbs, by the way.]
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Whilst on this face of it, this is good news, my personal experience suggests that it may not be true simply because far fewer people trust the police than was the case, say, 20 years ago and are therefore far less likely to report incidents in order to avoid becoming embroiled in the legal process. Just my opinion based on friends & relations.
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The link with the Cardiff University report is broken, much like our society.
It seems to indicate such crimes are more numerous than indicated by the British Crime Survey favoured by the government and yourself (because its trends favour Labour) rather than the police statistics. And the hospital figures exclude tens of thousands of victims of violence who do not seek hospital treatment.
There were still 350,000 victims of violent crimes treated in EDs last year. Even if this is a fall of 15% over 2001 it signals a complete failure by the Labour government to deal with crime or the causes of crime, failing at a cost of billions.
What is needed is a change of culture that does not excuse such criminals not bleeding hearts saying the problem is under control.
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I'm sure the millions stranded in their homes after dark, scared to stay in in case they get burgled, scared to go out in case they get mugged, are feeling so much better in the light of these statistics published - coincidentally - 2 weeks before the election. Caledonian Comment
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I don't trust crime statistics, probably never will.
I used to train with a bloke who worked as a bouncer at one of the city centre night clubs. He put it best when he said that in roughly 3 out of 4 of the violent incidences that would happen at that club the police wouldn't even be involved and even if they were involved the situation wouldn't always be logged. If violent incidences are often not being recorded or reported then no one can say the statistics are an accurate picture of the true situation. Now of course things may have changed a little in the recent couple of years since then but I very much doubt they've changed much.
In all the occasions where I was assaulted (which fortunately haven't been recent), with the exception of one, I never personally bothered to get the police involved. Partly due to the risk of being labelled a grass by local scum and partly due to fears of being prosecuted for fighting back and being charged with excessive violence.
Plus, of course, it's actually very easy to manipulate statistics to suit one's own ends.
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it'll get better when the police on the street actually prioritise violent crime ahead of other offences. on a friday or saturday night, you're far more likely to get picked up for public urination than fighting. this is down in part to the complete lack of public toilets, but more down to the public urinator being an easier target to pick on. if you're policing a street, you're going to instinctively go for the guy on his own with his pants down proclaiming 'aaaahhhhh nectar' than the 8 guys going all wrestlemania a bit further down the road.
I can recall an incident late at night on York station platform, where 4 of us were thrown out of the station by the transport police because one of our group used a bit of strong language, yet 30 yards down the platform, 10+ Darlington fans were kicking bins over, throwing bottles, starting on random people walking past and throwing the contents of the bins all over the station, including the railway line.
weak.
granted, swearing in public is a public order offence, but several times smaller in magnitude than criminal damage, drunk and disorderly, breach of the peace and threatening behaviour all at once.
people can and should criticise the government for their approach to law and order, but their job is made much more difficult when the implementors of their policies effectively just do what they feel like.
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Law and order is doing ok thanks! All cooked up with a nice bit of spin, and a "not me gov"! From MP.s (Nicks turn today) Lords and bankers. Not one has seen the inside of a court room! Oh the police! Re: the G20 last year! They are still under review (best way i could put that - the mods might sling me off). I like the way the BBC have turned on the BNP. All's fine for Gordon again today i see auntie!
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The survey comes from a Home Office run group to start with, it states violent crime fell only 0.4% in 2009 from 2008...a figure you oddly miss out preferring the Labour friendly 15%.
Studies from A&E in Liverpool John Moores University found that the number of people admitted to hospitals in England annually as a result of assaults increased by 29.5 per cent between 2002 and 2006 to 33,940.
So doesn't quite show the fall you and the govt claim every year since 2001.
The BCS is not the gold standard you claim either. Far from being an unchanging standard it changes constantly in the way data is collected, analysed and finally reported. The systems it uses to gather and collate the information change constantly. The computer programmes used to operate the system change frequently. The process is reliant on human input at many different stages and computers to automatically assign codes to occurrences.
At the end of the process it is Home Office staff who decide what is a crime and what isn't.
The figure of 40,000/year interviews is correct, in one respect anyway...that is the intended number....the actual number of interviews which end in an outcome which ends up categorised as a crime is often less than 2,000. The accuracy of those final categories can also be questioned as there is an error rate of 27% due to wrong coding, missing codes and inconsistencies.
Only 25% of those violent offences resulting in NHS treatment are recorded by the police.
This means that actual police recorded crime figures are being under reported.
The changes to the notifiable crimes system in 1998 was the largest instigator of the rise in crime figures, the 2002 change to the NCRS caused a far less serious rise.
It should be noted that the NCRS was not introduced wholesale in 2002 but had in fact been introduced piecemeal since 1998...so your contention that 2002 and the NCRS change was the big bang for crime figures rising is nonsense.
The real cause of crime rising after 2002 would have been the import of millions of immigrants amongst whom would be many criminals....1 in 7 prisoners are now foreigners. Note how as many immigrants return home crime has been dropping...and has stabilised now.
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"The Conservatives claim" should be "The Conservatives' claim", as claim is a noun (belonging to The Conservatives), nor a verb.
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I have no problems with violent crime stats showing a 0.4% decline from 2008 to 2009, or 15% from 2001 to 2009.
I do have a problem with Gordon Brown using these small declines as a vindication of his policies.
As has been mentioned, many town centres are NOT safe in the evening and night. Daytime public intoxication is rife in many places. Criminal cases often involve an element of gratuitous sadism, and each year we record 12 murders per million inhabitant, compared to just 4 per million in Singapore.
ERGO - Brown's policies are NOT working.
Mark concludes that 'the fact that overall violence is on the decline should not detract our society from the need to do everything we can to reduce it still further.'
Two comments on this:
1- When you look at the graph the trend is more towards a stabilisation than towards a continuous decline. Notice the spike in 2006 and the stagnation from 2008 to 2009.
2- The more you claim (inaccurately) that 'violent crime is falling', the more you encourage smugness and inaction from policy makers. Refer to the Pilkington case for evidence of this inaction.
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Then there's the punishment of crime.
A teenager smashes an old mans head in with a golf club which breaks the shaft then he stabs the old guy with the broken shaft.
So what did he get for destroying this mans life?
40 months...so presumably he'll be out in 20 which is just over 1 1/2 years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8637479.stm
Yup. we're all feeling much safer with things like this going on, we'll just keep believing the statistics and drinking the kool-aid.
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Kentucker wrote: How strangely convenient! Lies, damn lies and statistics?
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true."
-- Homer Simpson
I'm sure Kentucker you have lots of facts that backs up your claim that this Study is lies?
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I see again,, a "Kid HA @17" Burned a house down yesterday A KID 17? THEY ARE GETTING KILLED IN AFGHAISAN AT 18 FOR QE2 AND TONY CLOWN! When are you not a kid??? Because i know it was about @ 10 MY MOTHER/FATHER TOLD ME you see. Lib Dems say it's ok to screw your house and NOT go to jail is-it HO HO HO "OH PLEASE"!! DON'T COME IN TO MINE SAID THE SPIDER ETC!
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Sometimes ignorance is bliss but not when it comes to crime apparently. The figures clearly show it hass gone down and whether it's down to the government or not (I don't much care) I will sleep better at night.
People often place too much emphasis on their own personal experience and perceptions. I was assaulted, robbed and a victim of card fraud in 2006 but haven't been a victim of crime in the 4 years before or since. Does that mean 2006 was a particularly crime-fuelled year? No, I was just unlucky. Even the Tory election material I get in the post suggests the fear of crime has increased rather than the actual crime. This seems to be the case and is certainly worth talking about although I suggest the media at large may have something to do with it.
Oh and for anyone mentioning the youth of today stabbing and shooting each other I encourage you to watch West Side Story. A minority of young people will always join gangs.
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There is good news but of course the right wingers cant handle it such as they cant handle the tories not been so certain of a big win as they were for months,the stats still show we have an issue we always have had, especially with alcohol and the effects,those who are victims of crime will understandly may feel differant and there is more needed to support the victims more.
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Not all violent crimes result in actual violence. A threat of violence is violence. Mugging without actual assault is violence. Burglary is violent, because the perpetrator doesn't know if the house is empty. Vehicles can be driven violently.
Also, people learn to avoid violent situations by not going to places where they might be attacked, for example town centres or public transport late at night. Or perhaps they are afraid to challenge rowdy behaviour. This means their lives are blighted by intimidation.
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Three words go some way to explain the drop in the crime statistics.
CRIME RELATED INCIDENT
This is a dumping ground for "incidents" (broadly defined,and seldom ethically, but normally what one would describe as a crime) where crimes or allegations are re-classed to basically an "incident" and thus hidden from the stats. The excuses used are many, eg a victim having a broken jaw, but unwilling to prosecute or identify the assailant - this is a candidate for a CRI.
You won't find much about them on any official website and by some weird co-incidence they were only introduced in the last 18 months or so in the lead up to a general election.
I doubt that many victims are aware that their allegation has been changed, to make the statistics of a Police force seem better and in turn this duplicitous Government can lie about crime figures, probably so that swingeing cuts can be made.
I suggest a FOI check or two.
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