How do they calculate the amounts of unreported crime out of interest? Genuine question btw as I've worked in statistics a fair bit so curious about the methods - though not curious enough to read the entire report!
Not reported crime: Summary of methodology What's going to be interesting is that, even though this is utterly gold-standard research that's been copied worldwide, people have been so brainwashed to believe that crime is increasing that they will argue till they are blue in the face that this data isn't true. It happens every time it's raised, no matter where it's being discussed. Vin
Apologies, I misread one of the early paragraphs. They're clearly more accurate than the official crime figures but there are some issues with those surveys. As Section 18 says, the statistics are somewhat incomplete. They don't include drug crimes for one thing, which are quite obviously more common than they used to be. You can't walk for more than 5 minutes in most towns without smelling weed. I suspect people may also forget small crimes, especially ones they don't report. One of the reasons that bag story sprang to mind is I'd forgotten it happened until a recent conversation about things being stolen where my wife reminded me of it. But those are minor quibbles. But I think a a more important point here is that when people talk about "crime" they often have anti-social behaviour in mind as well and a lot of that won't get picked up by that survey. When my (quite small) wife took our 5 year old to the park with the new (quite big) trike my mum bought him and got scared when they were surrounded for a few minutes by a group of teenage boys insisting she should let them have a ride on it that probably doesn't get picked up by a crime survey. When an elderly woman on a bus asks a small group of girls to turn down the music they're playing on a phone and they reply "**** off. You're not my mum. You can't tell me what to do." and spend the next 5 or 10 minutes making nasty comments about her appearance that doesn't get picked up either. I'm not entirely sure whether things like groups of drivers meeting up in car parks and quiet roads to race, do doughnuts and so on would necessarily get picked up by that survey. If your neighbours play loud music until 11 at night and tell you to **** off when you ask them to turn it down because your small child can't sleep that may not get picked up either. There are lots of other small, unpleasant interactions that make people feel uncomfortable or even nervous on the streets but won't get picked up by a crime survey.
As I said, every time I post the CSEW results this happens. For reasons I can't understand, people are desperate to retain the belief that crime has grown. There is no logical reason for this but it always happens. It's really, really good news that nobody seems to want to believe. We seem programmed to think that things are becoming worse. You're keen to say things aren't picked up by the survey that are picked up. When I heard someone from the Stats office talk about it, he said (I paraphrase), if you think its a crime, we record it. There's plenty about the methodology in their report and supporting documents. It's fine. I know we've all had a drip, drip drip of "crime is rising, we need to have harsher sentences" from the media and politicians for years. It's utterly false. Incidentally, it's the same in the US. Crime rates have collapsed but perceptions are that it's increased. See this article (about a five minute read): https://x.com/ClimateCentreUK/status/1814261437151191470 Vin
No. You're totally misunderstanding my point. I'm not "keen to say things aren't picked up by the survey that are picked up". As you say, what gets recorded is what people think are crimes. I chose three of those examples (the teenagers in the park and on the bus and the neighbours playing loud music) precisely because they're not things most people would consider to be crimes. I'm talking about low level, unpleasant, anti-social behaviours that most people wouldn't consider criminal (and therefore wouldn't report) but contribute to people not feeling safe in public. I mentioned the driving stuff because there's no mention of driving offences in the survey (try searching for the word "drive", "driving" or "traffic". They don't appear) and I've looked at other pages that say this survey doesn't record driving offences.
We think crime is on the increase, because we are told that and also because we all have access to see more of the things happening. For example, 10 years ago I wouldn't see the altercation between an old lady and kids in hoodies, today it is on everyone's feed and if not some one reposts it etc 1000 times.
Hoodies Not that heard that term in years. Takes me back to my teenage years when wearing a hoody obviously made me a massive thug.
I'm just trying to bring good news backed up by evidence rather than gut feel. I started off in my very first post by pointing out that you would deny it. Crime is down. Massively. By about 75% since 1995. If that CSEW drop has been made up by rude kids on the buses, loud music and driving offences that didn't happen in 1995 then I'm sure you could be right; there's more crime than ever. Believe what you choose to believe. If you want to be unhappy because politicians and the media want you to be, crack on. Vin
I'm not saying there's more crime than ever, I'm saying crime is only part of the picture. I'm saying people conflate crime and anti-social behaviour and they see an increasing amount of non-criminal anti-social behaviour in public on a daily basis that makes them feel uncomfortable or nervous. Combine that with a significant increase in a highly visible crime like shoplifting and that's part of why people don't believe these statistics. The anti-social stuff is also where the lack of police on the streets comes in. To test my thoughts on the non-criminal thing I just asked the person sitting next to me in the office what they think about the bus example. Do they think it's a crime? Her response makes my point nicely: "Well it's anti-social and rude but no, it's not a crime. Mind you, if there was a Transport Police officer on the bus I'd expect them to step in and stop it."
Never said anything about a punch up. You wouldn't say anything if you saw a bunch of teenagers bullying an elderly woman on the bus?
I can honestly say that at the age of 63, and as a regular passenger on buses, that’s something I’ve never witnessed. Teenagers being loud is usually as bad as it gets, and annoying as that is, I generally leave them to it. Teenagers fighting each other, I have intervened in the past and might do so again, but I’d be a bit circumspect about that tbh.
