New Report: UK Crime Statistics Fudged to Justify Gun Ban
Posted By Philip Hodges on Oct 22, 2013 | 87 Comments
How many times have we heard Piers Morgan rant and rave about crime rates in his home country? He claims gun violence is virtually nonexistent thanks to the Brits doing the “responsible” thing and taking everyone’s guns away in 1997. Sure, there was an acknowledged, initial spike in crime shortly thereafter, but then it began to fall and has since plummeted. Or so they say.
It turns out that they have an entire bureaucracy over there devoted not to fighting crime, but fighting crime statistics. Their job is to determine which crimes get recorded as crimes and which get categorized as something else, which ends up not affecting the overall crime rate.
In other words, if there is an attempted burglary, it might get reported initially by a victim or a witness, but it also might end up being categorized as “criminal damage” instead of burglary. Or if there’s an instance of what they call “Grievous Bodily Harm,” it might get categorized as “common assault.” When they downgrade the category, it affects how crime statistics are eventually reported in the media, and those numbers are the ones that find their way to Piers Morgan, who then trumpets them from his TV show so that everyone knows how effective gun control is.
According to the report:
…[T]he Brits are vigorously and openly beating their statistics to a bloody pulp, as they have created a stunningly large bureaucracy to deal with crime figures.
The created bureaucracy helps make decisions about how a crime will ultimately be reported—or not reported. The Home Office acknowledged the situation and the existence of crime reduction targets: “The police do an excellent job but the rise in bureaucracy, targets and paperwork under the last Government turned the police into form-writers instead of crime-fighters…Increasing government interference in recent years has changed the focus of the police. They have become responsive to targets and bureaucracy rather than to people.” Note here that the Home Office is admitting to the existence of “targets.” These targets are guides used to reduce the number of crimes reported, and the severity of those crimes. It is openly acknowledged that police are under pressure to reduce the crime statistics, and that they have goals that they must meet. One can notice that the Constable who described exactly how these “targets” work did not face the camera.
The data are so manipulated that no one really knows for sure what the truth is about UK violent crime. Those in positions of authority who might know about true crime statistics face disciplinary measures if they decide to blow the whistle. So everyone keeps quiet. And liberals in the US go on believing that UK gun control has been a resounding success.
Read more at
http://lastresistance.com/3441/new-report-uk-crime-statistics-fudged-justify-gun-ban/#yswpJcmldfrMiTgQ.99
