Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Statistical disorder
Tribune column, 30 July 2004
Reuters, ITV, the Mail and the Express all ran with variations on the theme "Violent crime soars 12%". The Times headline referred to "One million violent crimes". The Mirror led with "Lawless UK". And the Sun, under the heading "Drunk and disorderly", reported how "Boozed-up yobs were blamed yesterday for a whopping 12 per cent surge in violent crime."
That was one version of the different crime figures published last week. The other was represented in the Guardian, under the headline "Longest period of falling crime for 106 years"; and, more stridently, in the Independent, which proclaimed: "Crime: the truth. New figures reveal that crime has fallen 39 per cent over the past nine years – the biggest sustained fall since the 19th century."
This conflict of evidence has become a recurring theme in the crime debate. On the one hand, the Sun can declare – correctly – that: "The number of violent offences last year topped a million for the first time . . . Assaults, woundings and threats to kill have TREBLED under Labour, according to the shock figures. Meanwhile, police detection rates have FALLEN in every region of England and Wales."
On the other hand – and equally correctly – the Independent can demonstrate how the decline in crime has been "quite staggering: car thefts, burglaries, domestic violence and assaults on people who are known to each other have all dropped by about half . . . In every category of crime – including violent crime – there has been a decrease. The risk of becoming a victim of crime has fallen from 40 per cent in 1995 to 26 per cent."
So whose interpretation of these apparently conflicting statistics does one believe? And what does it mean in terms of public policy on crime and punishment at a time when the government is sending out seemingly mixed messages announcing that crime is under control and falling, and at the same time that it is necessary to ditch the so-called "1960s liberal consensus" and get tough on law and order?
First, the figures. The 12% hike in violent crime that made most of the headlines last week comes from police figures for recorded offences, which showed a total of 1,109,017 violent offences in the UK in 2003-04, up from 991,603 the previous year. Altogether, on this reckoning, the number of recorded crimes rose 1% to 5,934,580.
The Guardian, Independent and the government, however, preferred to rely on the British Crime Survey, in which 40,000 people aged 16 and over are interviewed about their personal experiences of crime. This is considered to provide a more accurate picture because it includes unreported crimes. About half of all crimes are not reported to the police, so the BCS figures show an estimated 11,700,000 crimes committed in the year ending April 2004. This may be almost twice as high as the number of crimes recorded by the police, but it is a massive reduction from the peak of 19,300,000 crimes reported in the 1995 British Crime Survey.
"Not since 1981, when the total was a little over 11 million, have the figures been so low," the Independent declared triumphantly. "The last time Britain enjoyed such a sustained fall in crime was in 1898 – a decade in which, ironically, Jack the Ripper was terrorising Whitechapel, east London."
So is it just an "urban myth" that fear of crime and anti-social behaviour is rising, as Professor Paul Wiles, the director of research, development and statistics at the Home Office, believes? And have David Blunkett and Tony Blair miscalculated in their emphasis on a crackdown on social disorder and crime?
The answer is that neither the precise figures nor the detailed trends matter as much to most people as what is happening in their immediate neighbourhoods. And whichever way you look at, more than a million violent crimes in a single year means that a very substantial proportion of the population will have had direct experience as a victim, or as a friend or relative of a victim, of those crimes.
Look at people's experience of violent crime over a longer period (our perceptions are shaped not just by what happened in the year 2003-04 but by what occurred in the five, ten or 15 years before that too), and it becomes clear that the fear of crime is not urban myth but reality. The statistical risk of becoming a victim of crime may have fallen from 40 per cent in 1995 to 26 per cent in the year just gone, but spread that figure over four years and it becomes a 104% probability, or 260% over ten years. Spread it over a lifetime and the odds are that an individual will have been the victim of more than 18 different crimes. And since crime is not distributed evenly, some people are going to have been on the receiving end of a great deal more than that.
It's not necessary to rail against some supposed "1960s liberal consensus" on crime to recognise that safeguarding the right of citizens to live free from fear is one of the first responsibilities of the state. Those 1,109.017 violent offences recorded in the UK last year include 955,752 offences of violence against the person, a 14% increase. Threats to kill were up 23% to 22,232; serious wounding up 8% to 19,358; racially-aggravated wounding up 11% to 4,840; and harassment up 26% to 152,269. Sex offences increased by 7% to 52,070 – including an 8% increase in rapes of women to 12,354.
These are all statistics that merit urgent action, whichever way you choose to interpret them.
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Tribune column, 30 July 2004
Reuters, ITV, the Mail and the Express all ran with variations on the theme "Violent crime soars 12%". The Times headline referred to "One million violent crimes". The Mirror led with "Lawless UK". And the Sun, under the heading "Drunk and disorderly", reported how "Boozed-up yobs were blamed yesterday for a whopping 12 per cent surge in violent crime."
That was one version of the different crime figures published last week. The other was represented in the Guardian, under the headline "Longest period of falling crime for 106 years"; and, more stridently, in the Independent, which proclaimed: "Crime: the truth. New figures reveal that crime has fallen 39 per cent over the past nine years – the biggest sustained fall since the 19th century."
This conflict of evidence has become a recurring theme in the crime debate. On the one hand, the Sun can declare – correctly – that: "The number of violent offences last year topped a million for the first time . . . Assaults, woundings and threats to kill have TREBLED under Labour, according to the shock figures. Meanwhile, police detection rates have FALLEN in every region of England and Wales."
On the other hand – and equally correctly – the Independent can demonstrate how the decline in crime has been "quite staggering: car thefts, burglaries, domestic violence and assaults on people who are known to each other have all dropped by about half . . . In every category of crime – including violent crime – there has been a decrease. The risk of becoming a victim of crime has fallen from 40 per cent in 1995 to 26 per cent."
So whose interpretation of these apparently conflicting statistics does one believe? And what does it mean in terms of public policy on crime and punishment at a time when the government is sending out seemingly mixed messages announcing that crime is under control and falling, and at the same time that it is necessary to ditch the so-called "1960s liberal consensus" and get tough on law and order?
First, the figures. The 12% hike in violent crime that made most of the headlines last week comes from police figures for recorded offences, which showed a total of 1,109,017 violent offences in the UK in 2003-04, up from 991,603 the previous year. Altogether, on this reckoning, the number of recorded crimes rose 1% to 5,934,580.
The Guardian, Independent and the government, however, preferred to rely on the British Crime Survey, in which 40,000 people aged 16 and over are interviewed about their personal experiences of crime. This is considered to provide a more accurate picture because it includes unreported crimes. About half of all crimes are not reported to the police, so the BCS figures show an estimated 11,700,000 crimes committed in the year ending April 2004. This may be almost twice as high as the number of crimes recorded by the police, but it is a massive reduction from the peak of 19,300,000 crimes reported in the 1995 British Crime Survey.
"Not since 1981, when the total was a little over 11 million, have the figures been so low," the Independent declared triumphantly. "The last time Britain enjoyed such a sustained fall in crime was in 1898 – a decade in which, ironically, Jack the Ripper was terrorising Whitechapel, east London."
So is it just an "urban myth" that fear of crime and anti-social behaviour is rising, as Professor Paul Wiles, the director of research, development and statistics at the Home Office, believes? And have David Blunkett and Tony Blair miscalculated in their emphasis on a crackdown on social disorder and crime?
The answer is that neither the precise figures nor the detailed trends matter as much to most people as what is happening in their immediate neighbourhoods. And whichever way you look at, more than a million violent crimes in a single year means that a very substantial proportion of the population will have had direct experience as a victim, or as a friend or relative of a victim, of those crimes.
Look at people's experience of violent crime over a longer period (our perceptions are shaped not just by what happened in the year 2003-04 but by what occurred in the five, ten or 15 years before that too), and it becomes clear that the fear of crime is not urban myth but reality. The statistical risk of becoming a victim of crime may have fallen from 40 per cent in 1995 to 26 per cent in the year just gone, but spread that figure over four years and it becomes a 104% probability, or 260% over ten years. Spread it over a lifetime and the odds are that an individual will have been the victim of more than 18 different crimes. And since crime is not distributed evenly, some people are going to have been on the receiving end of a great deal more than that.
It's not necessary to rail against some supposed "1960s liberal consensus" on crime to recognise that safeguarding the right of citizens to live free from fear is one of the first responsibilities of the state. Those 1,109.017 violent offences recorded in the UK last year include 955,752 offences of violence against the person, a 14% increase. Threats to kill were up 23% to 22,232; serious wounding up 8% to 19,358; racially-aggravated wounding up 11% to 4,840; and harassment up 26% to 152,269. Sex offences increased by 7% to 52,070 – including an 8% increase in rapes of women to 12,354.
These are all statistics that merit urgent action, whichever way you choose to interpret them.
Friday, July 16, 2004
Spend it like Beckham
Tribune column, 16 July 2004
There are worse ways of filling the weekend viewing schedules than a charity event like last Saturday's Sport Relief "Go the extra Mile" fundraiser. And there are worse ways of massaging celebrity egos than by allowing them to parade their social consciences on the little screen on behalf of people less publicity-hungry than themselves.
I just wish we'd charge them a proper rate for our services.
Across the UK, according to the BBC, some 81,000 of us took part in 144 official races in the "biggest mile event in history". Ten thousand of us, including Prince William (who failed to break the six-minute barrier despite all his advantages of birth, breeding and starting at the front), did the run on London's Embankment. We raised what the organisers describe as "a record £11,078,359" on the day. And the BBC transmitted five hours of programmes for the event.
These included an interview with England's penalty-misser-in-chief, David Beckham, by the Fast Show's Ron Manager, aka comedian Paul Whitehouse. Beckham, it was generally agreed, had been an all-round "good sport" by submitting himself to jokes about those penalty misses, his high-pitched voice, his love of "bling", text-sex messages – and "holding his own" in the dressing room. The one question that was presumably off-limits, as it always seems to be on these occasions, was how much of his own money he'd put into the Sport Relief appeal.
The same was true of the trip to Peru on behalf of Sport Relief by Beckham's wife, Victoria, which featured in the BBC's documentary A Mile in Their Shoes. "I feel so sad and helpless, yet I really want to help," said Victoria, after spending time with 11-year-old Dinah, whose mum died three years ago and who lives and works with her dad on a rubbish tip – or at least did until the Sport Relief-supported charity ChildHope came up with the cash to enable her to go to school.
"People shouldn't have to live like this," Victorian commented. "I'm finding that everything I've seen and experienced is taking its toll on me – as it would any mum."
Now I'm not going to join the "former Spice Girl seeks to revive flagging image with public sympathy from charity work" knocking crew. Better a picture opportunity of Posh Spice bringing public attention to bear on the plight of Lima's quarter of a million working children under the age of 12 than yet another shallow photo shoot publicising some unnecessary product or other in the Beckhams' extravagant consumerist lifestyle.
But why don't we charge our celebrities to take part in these sorts of things, rather than, as is so often the case, allow them at a minimum to milk us for every penny of expenses they can possibly claim – or at a maximum to impose "appearance fees" that are usually more than most beneficiaries of the particular charity appeal in question earn in a year?
The rich and celebrity-famous owe us at least this much. Their wealth and fame, after all, comes from us. They clearly feel some guilt at not having earned it. (What else, other than guilt about unmerited riches, makes questioning someone about their money the last taboo in celebrity interviewing?) And they clearly feel some need to absolve themselves through good deeds.
So why not put a price on their absolution, as the church used to in medieval times with its sale of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins? David Beckham wants to turn his cheating on his wife with his former PA, Rebecca Loos, into a joke about "textual intercourse"? Fine. How much is that Vodafone sponsorship worth again, David?
Victoria really really wants to help Peru's poor children and not feel so "sad and helpless" about their situation? No problem. How about (as a down payment, of course – we'll talk final terms later) something like the £100,000 you laid out for that statue of baby Brooklyn posing with you and his dad?
We should be careful, though, lest the sale of celebrity indulgences is done too cheaply. This year's Sport Relief event sold its principal sponsorship slot to a chain of gyms for about what the Beckhams earn in a week. For around £250,000, the company got its name listed even ahead of Sport Relief itself in the 144 official Fitness First Sport Relief Miles held around the country. With five hours of prime-time television to accompany the races, you can't help but feel that the Fitness First folk bought themselves a bloody good deal.
The truth is that celebrity and corporate support for charity is built upon a con-trick. We, the charity-supporting public (whose generosity declines in direct proportion to the size of our income), are being taken for a ride by people who want wealth with a clear conscience – but are not prepared to pay for it.
The money raised by events such as Sport Relief makes a big difference to people's lives – and not only those of Peruvian children lucky enough to have their photos taken with a British pop star. But it's a mere fraction of what the celebrities alone could contribute if they wished.
I wonder, did anyone from Sport Relief make the obvious point to Victoria Beckham that the poor are poor because the rich are rich? And nowhere more so than in Latin America, where a recent report by Merrill Lynch and CapGemini revealed that the very rich have a higher average wealth than any other major region in the world.
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Tribune column, 16 July 2004
There are worse ways of filling the weekend viewing schedules than a charity event like last Saturday's Sport Relief "Go the extra Mile" fundraiser. And there are worse ways of massaging celebrity egos than by allowing them to parade their social consciences on the little screen on behalf of people less publicity-hungry than themselves.
I just wish we'd charge them a proper rate for our services.
Across the UK, according to the BBC, some 81,000 of us took part in 144 official races in the "biggest mile event in history". Ten thousand of us, including Prince William (who failed to break the six-minute barrier despite all his advantages of birth, breeding and starting at the front), did the run on London's Embankment. We raised what the organisers describe as "a record £11,078,359" on the day. And the BBC transmitted five hours of programmes for the event.
These included an interview with England's penalty-misser-in-chief, David Beckham, by the Fast Show's Ron Manager, aka comedian Paul Whitehouse. Beckham, it was generally agreed, had been an all-round "good sport" by submitting himself to jokes about those penalty misses, his high-pitched voice, his love of "bling", text-sex messages – and "holding his own" in the dressing room. The one question that was presumably off-limits, as it always seems to be on these occasions, was how much of his own money he'd put into the Sport Relief appeal.
The same was true of the trip to Peru on behalf of Sport Relief by Beckham's wife, Victoria, which featured in the BBC's documentary A Mile in Their Shoes. "I feel so sad and helpless, yet I really want to help," said Victoria, after spending time with 11-year-old Dinah, whose mum died three years ago and who lives and works with her dad on a rubbish tip – or at least did until the Sport Relief-supported charity ChildHope came up with the cash to enable her to go to school.
"People shouldn't have to live like this," Victorian commented. "I'm finding that everything I've seen and experienced is taking its toll on me – as it would any mum."
Now I'm not going to join the "former Spice Girl seeks to revive flagging image with public sympathy from charity work" knocking crew. Better a picture opportunity of Posh Spice bringing public attention to bear on the plight of Lima's quarter of a million working children under the age of 12 than yet another shallow photo shoot publicising some unnecessary product or other in the Beckhams' extravagant consumerist lifestyle.
But why don't we charge our celebrities to take part in these sorts of things, rather than, as is so often the case, allow them at a minimum to milk us for every penny of expenses they can possibly claim – or at a maximum to impose "appearance fees" that are usually more than most beneficiaries of the particular charity appeal in question earn in a year?
The rich and celebrity-famous owe us at least this much. Their wealth and fame, after all, comes from us. They clearly feel some guilt at not having earned it. (What else, other than guilt about unmerited riches, makes questioning someone about their money the last taboo in celebrity interviewing?) And they clearly feel some need to absolve themselves through good deeds.
So why not put a price on their absolution, as the church used to in medieval times with its sale of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins? David Beckham wants to turn his cheating on his wife with his former PA, Rebecca Loos, into a joke about "textual intercourse"? Fine. How much is that Vodafone sponsorship worth again, David?
Victoria really really wants to help Peru's poor children and not feel so "sad and helpless" about their situation? No problem. How about (as a down payment, of course – we'll talk final terms later) something like the £100,000 you laid out for that statue of baby Brooklyn posing with you and his dad?
We should be careful, though, lest the sale of celebrity indulgences is done too cheaply. This year's Sport Relief event sold its principal sponsorship slot to a chain of gyms for about what the Beckhams earn in a week. For around £250,000, the company got its name listed even ahead of Sport Relief itself in the 144 official Fitness First Sport Relief Miles held around the country. With five hours of prime-time television to accompany the races, you can't help but feel that the Fitness First folk bought themselves a bloody good deal.
The truth is that celebrity and corporate support for charity is built upon a con-trick. We, the charity-supporting public (whose generosity declines in direct proportion to the size of our income), are being taken for a ride by people who want wealth with a clear conscience – but are not prepared to pay for it.
The money raised by events such as Sport Relief makes a big difference to people's lives – and not only those of Peruvian children lucky enough to have their photos taken with a British pop star. But it's a mere fraction of what the celebrities alone could contribute if they wished.
I wonder, did anyone from Sport Relief make the obvious point to Victoria Beckham that the poor are poor because the rich are rich? And nowhere more so than in Latin America, where a recent report by Merrill Lynch and CapGemini revealed that the very rich have a higher average wealth than any other major region in the world.
