The Fiddling of Crime Figures - Vindication of my Warnings

In this world of power-worshippers and gullible believers of propaganda, I get into all kinds of trouble for daring to suggest that authority may not be entirely honest. Having been brought up in a culture which respected independence of mind, and sided automatically with the underdog, I am often taken by surprise by the strength of and virulence of reactions to statements I think are mild and normal.

 

One example of this is the MMR matter, where I automatically take the side of perplexed and frightened individuals against a high-handed and bullying state,  and am immediately falsely accused of a number of things, including making prescriptive statements about the MMR which I have never made. What is wrong with us, that defence of the individual against arrogant power is now actually unpopular?  I don’t care about my own popularity or lack of it, but I do care that the population is becoming instinctively totalitarian.

 

Another is my repeated suggestion that official crime figures, having become politically important, may not be wholly accurate. (the same problem, of course, affects exam results, school performance, unemployment and inflation figures. The state is now so all-encompassing that official statistics are now crucial to the state’s image machine. We have become similar to the USSR in the 1950s, when Soviet statistics were so politicised that those who read them described the manipulation as ‘The Bikini Effect’ – the figures were  more interesting for what they conceal than for what they reveal.

 

I encounter fury and derision when I say this, and my attempts to back it up with the detailed work of qualified researchers are ignored by these scoffers.

 

So imagine my delight when the House of Commons Pubic Administration Committee decided to  investigate the matter, calling a number of expert witnesses to do so, protected by Parliamentary privilege.

 

The session took place on Tuesday 19th November, and can be watched here.

 

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=14214&wfs=true

 

Some of the exchanges will astonish you, though regular readers will not be as surprised as new ones.

 

I was even moe pleased that several newspapers at last treated this matter seriously. ‘TheTimes’, which I cannot reproduce because it is behind a paywall, led its front page on the matter.

The ‘Daily Mail’  gave prominent inside space to the following story:

 

‘How violent crimes “are made to vanish like a puff of smoke” tricks used by officers

Police chiefs tell MPs that stats are routinely fiddled

By: Chris Greenwood

 

CRIME figures are routinely massaged by police desperate to show that they are making the streets safer, it was claimed yesterday.

 

Serious offences including rape, child sex abuse, robberies and burglary are disappearing in a 'puff of smoke', MPs were told.

 

Police are accused of downgrading crimes to less serious offences and even erasing them altogether by labelling them as accidents or errors. One police analyst claimed that hundreds of burglaries 'disappeared' in a matter of weeks at the Met after managers intervened.

 

The claims were made at a hearing of Parliament's Public Administration Committee. Chairman Bernard Jenkin said he was 'shocked' by the evidence. 'What we have heard is how there is a system of incentives in the police that has become inherently corrupting,' he said.

 

Officers claim they are under pressure to record crimes as less controversial offences or even no crime at all.

 

Pc James Patrick, who analyses crime figures for the Met, said he found robberies being logged as 'theft snatch' in order to get them 'off the books'. The officer, who faces disciplinary proceedings for gross misconduct after writing a blog about the impact of police reform, said burglary figures were also changed.

 

'Burglary is an area where crimes are downgraded or moved into other brackets, such as criminal damage for attempted burglaries,' he said.

 

Pc Patrick said an internal audit found that 'as many as 300 burglaries' vanished from official figures in just a few weeks. 'Things were being reported as burglaries and you would then re-run the same report after there had been a human intervention, a management intervention, and these burglaries effectively disappeared in a puff of smoke,' he said.

 

He claimed that in 80 per cent of cases where an allegation of a serious sexual offence had been recorded as 'no crime', the label was incorrect.

 

Pc Patrick also said numerous other cases were incorrectly recorded as 'crime-related incidents', a category covering allegations made by third parties but not directly confirmed by the supposed victims.

 

He said pressure was put on victims to drop crimes by 'attacking the allegation' instead of investigating the crime.

 

He was supported by Peter Barron, a former Detective Chief Superintendent at the Met, who said victims are 'harassed' into scaling down the seriousness of incidents. They would telephoned and repeatedly questioned on the circumstances of the crime.

 

'Victims were putting the phone down in disgust, harassed by another call from someone trying to persuade them that they were mistaken about the level of force used,' he added.

 

Mr Barron said the Met had been set a target of reducing crimes in several priority areas by 20 per cent. 'That translates into "record 20 per cent fewer crimes" as far as senior officers are concerned,' he said.

 

The Met said it has appointed a 'force crime registrar' to rule on disputed crimes and to ensure the correct policies are followed.

 

TRICKS USED BY OFFICERS Slang police use to describe how crimes 'disappear'

 

CUFFING: Like a magician hides cards up his sleeve, police downgrade serious offences by recording them as non crimes or by accusing the victim of lying. Stolen items could be recorded as lost property or multiple offences as a single crime. For example, a petrol station is told that a fuel theft is a 'civil matter' as the customer may have forgotten to pay.

 

STITCHING: Police 'stitch up' a suspect by charging them when there is little evidence. Officers know the case will not proceed but the crime is said to be 'detected'. Suspects may also be urged to accept a caution, even when there is not enough evidence to prove their guilt.

 

NODDING: Criminals help police improve clear-up rates by admitting offences they may not have committed in return for help such as a letter to court asking for leniency.

 

SKEWING: Forces put disproportionate resources into tackling crimes measured by performance indicators. This often means focusing on crimes easiest to solve.’

 

The ‘Guardian ran this story, again inside the paper:

 

‘Police 'fail to investigate rapes and child abuse'

MPs told of attempts to massage crime figures Lives have been lost, former officer alleges

By: Vikram Dodd, Kevin Rawlinson

 

Police are failing to investigate some of the most serious crimes, including rapes and sexual abuse of children, in an attempt to massage official statistics, a parliamentary committee was told yesterday. MPs on the Commons public administration committee heard evidence from past and present officers who claimed the fiddling of crime figures was done to boost apparent performance.

 

Former West Midlands chief inspector Dr Rodger Patrick said the failure to investigate serious allegations properly had catastrophic consequences: "I highlighted this issue in relation to incidents involving domestic violence and child protection, child abuse, but the incidents weren't recorded and investigated and subsequently this led to homicide.

 

"That is the extreme end of the risk that people are taking. It isn't just about fudging the figures to keep everybody happy - there are really serious consequences of this behaviour."

 

Peter Barron, a former detective chief superintendent in the Metropolitan police, told MPs that some crime victims are "harassed" by police into dropping allegations: "Many people are persuaded that their pocket hasn't been picked." The former officer said that those who try to blow the whistle on the fiddling of crime figures are victimised: "By and large they are marginalised; if they apply for promotion they are not selected. They are judged to be not a team player."

 

The committee also heard from a serving Met constable who alleged parliament had been spoon-fed misleading crime figures for over a decade. PC James Patrick said figures from his own force on rape were being kept artificially down.

 

Patrick told MPs that his research showed 70% of rape allegations that were classed as not meriting investigation were wrongly dismissed.

 

Patrick told the committee: "A preference had developed to try to justify 'no crime' on the basis of mental health or similar issues of vulnerability or by saying that the victim has refused to disclose to them."

 

Committee chair Bernard Jenkin asked: "This would finish up with trying to persuade a victim that they weren't raped, for example?" Patrick responded: "Effectively, yes."

 

Police massaging of figures on rape involved a practice whereby officers classed allegations as crime-related incidents rather than crimes , meaning the cases were not investigated properly.

 

In 2009 the Guardian revealed up to six boroughs in the Met had used the technique, in breach of the force's policy that all rape complaints should be treated as crimes and investigated unless evidence emerged to the contrary.

 

Rape Crisis England & Wales said it was "very concerned" by the allegations such practices were continuing.’

 

Well, anyone who had read my blog last January here

 

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/01/should-we-trust-official-crime-figures.html

 

or this posting from December 2012

 

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2012/11/justice-denied-our-worst-retreat-since-dunkirk.html

 

 

would be wholly unsurprised by this. What’s interesting is that the whole might and power of British journalism has moved so slowly to assess and report this enormous story.