(cont'd)
The fair and balanced viewpoint:
[b]But the criminologist Professor David Wilson said comparisons with New York did not reflect that the murder rate in New York City was still 11 times higher than that in London, despite the improvements of the past decade.[/b]
And the ratio in the 1980's was what? According to the data available [url=www.icpsr.umich.edu:8080/ABSTRACTS/03226.xml?format=ICPSR]here[/url], the average number of homicides per year in New York City from 1980 to 1989 was 1,681. In 1990 the toll was 2245, but in 1999 it was 670, a 70% decrease in ten years. No wonder they're consulting Giuliani. According to this [url=www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199899/cmhansrd/vo990422/text/90422w02.htm]link[/url] the average number of homicides in London for 1986 to 1989 was 182. That makes the homicide ratio between New York and London in the 80's approximately 9:1. Huh? According to the same link there were 180 homicides in London in 1999, that's a ratio [b]3:1[/b], not [i]11:1[/i]. Gee, you don't think that criminologist Professor David Wilson might be [i]lying[/i] do you?
According to this [url=www.cipherwar.com/news/01/guns_uk.htm]link[/url]:
[red](A)2000 report from the Inspectorate of Constabulary charges Britain's 43 police departments with systemic under-classification of crime – for example, by recording burglary as "vandalism." The report lays much of the blame on the police's desire to avoid the extra paperwork associated with more serious crimes.
Britain's justice officials have also kept crime totals down by being careful about what to count.
"American homicide rates are based on initial data, but British homicide rates are based on the final disposition." Suppose that three men kill a woman during an argument outside a bar. They are arrested for murder, but because of problems with identification (the main witness is dead), charges are eventually dropped. In American crime statistics, the event counts as a three-person homicide, but in British statistics it counts as nothing at all. "With such differences in reporting criteria, comparisons of U.S. homicide rates with British homicide rates is a sham," the report concludes. [/red]
Perhaps criminologist Professor David Wilson is just fudging the numbers a bit too?
[b]Lee Jasper, Mr Livingstone's special adviser on policing, said: "To say that it is like New York in the Eighties is an exaggeration. We are nowhere near what New York was like when Times Square and the Bronx were at their worst." He added: "Street robbery has increased, but the majority of that is young people robbing other young people of mobile phones and I don't think that was the case in New York in the mid-1980s."[/b]
Perhaps not, but a mugging is a mugging whether you're 16 or 60, and just [i]what[/i] they steal seems inconsequential to the act. Especially if they're willing to injure you to get what they want.