elections, measuring crime and 'broken britain'

In response to Fiona and Gemma:

the Tory's are scrabbling about for anything to back up their broken Britain clap trap. They can't use the BCS because that doesn't back up their thesis so they're falling back on official statistics, which only measure an increase because police changed the way they measure violent crime. Politicians must think we’re stupid, it makes me furious!! I heard an interview with Chris Grayling on the radio and subsequently felt like contributing to some violent crime myself! When the interviewer started challenging him, he reverted instead to talking about individual crimes which have been in the headlines recently, saying things like “these crimes would have never happened in the past”. Arg!

On a more general note, having spent some time working on the Scottish equivalent of the BCS for a short time (the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey), I can say that yes, there are problems with these sorts of surveys, one of them (which the Conservatives do highlight) is that it doesn’t' measure crime against the under 16s, which is a considerable shortcoming. However, all methods of collecting this sort of data have their short comings and surveys such as the BCS and the SCJS are by far and away the best measurement that is available.

Also - the 'Broken Britain' thesis. I really enjoyed that Guardian article (I would though, woudn’t I?!) It was right to point out the way the term can be used and interpreted in any way according to your own particular worry “It is an accordion-like concept, stretching and squeezing to fit different definitions depending on what the major worry of the hour is – youth crime, teenage pregnancy or anti-social behaviour.”, and also to argued that Easterhouse was not an example of ‘broken britain’ but rather a Britain that is still “profoundly unfair”

The problem then comes for the Tory’s when they try and find evidence to back their thesis, and here ‘crime’ is clearly needed. Hence the reliance on official statistics because it suits their case, and I also heard David Cameron say something like ‘there are over 1000 incidents of antisocial behaviour a day’ in his same broken Britain speech. Well, antisocial behaviour is such a socially constructed concept! And it includes things like dropping your kitkat wrapper on the pavement.

Anyway – interesting indeed. Labour don’t really have anything to say on crime, the Tory’s are grasping at broken straws and the Lib Dems (no, I’m not just jumping on any bandwagon) are being sensible.. What’s interesting is that the Tory’s and Labour aren’t attacking them more strongly on this, I’ve only heard a couple of ‘the Lib Dems are ‘soft on crime’’ attacks, and the other parties could have capitalised on this much more I think. Which proves that there is really is little political mileage on crime in this election, which is very interesting indeed. This could be because, as Rod Morgan suggested, there’s nowhere else for them to go, they’ve ‘out-toughed’ each other in unsustainable ways. And also because there’s nae pennies in the coffers for more big crime policies (and the consequential prisons places). Plus, the whole ‘crime’ rhetoric just sounds sort of tired now.. Very much associated with New Labour and that era seems to have ended..

Goodness – rant! See what happens when you’re trying not to write a presentation for the next day!