Yesterday saw the publication of the HMIC report into allegations that Police Forces across England and Wales have been systematically under-recording crimes.
They conclude that Police Forces have failed to record about 800,000 crimes a year, including 25% of Sex Crimes. An astounding figure, no wonder Crime is down across the UK.
The chief inspector of HMIC, nice Mr Winsor, said that a national crime recording rate of 81% was inexcusably poor: “This is not about numbers and dry statistics – it is about victims and the protection of the public.”
The investigation was based on reviewing 10,267 reports of crime by the public and 3,240 “no-crime” decisions as well as surveying the views of 17,000 police officers and staff.
The report rejects claims that the practice of under-recording is due to “fiddled figures” or dishonest manipulation, saying that although the staff survey and interviews with whistleblowers produced many such allegations, no one came forward with firm evidence.
The report says “that the police must record an incident as a crime when a victim reports circumstances that amount to an offence as defined by the law and there is no credible evidence to the contrary.”
Is this paragraph not at odds with the previous one? Despite surveying 17,000 officers and staff there was no “evidence” so it didn’t happen.
Apparently every allegation of Crime should be ‘Crime’d’. Surely every allegation should be recorded and No Crime’d if that is appropriate after investigation. Maybe Uncle Tom is showing his lack of relevant experience, I don’t believe that he could be that naive. Or maybe we’re simply taking a step back into the past and there will no initial investigation at the scene, just Crime Reporting with a follow-on investigation by the suits?
The inspectors say that a number of police forces accepted that “undue performance pressures had adversely affected crime recording in the past, and the culture of chasing targets as ends in themselves had distorted crime-recording decisions”.
If an allegation of Attempted Burglary is classified as Criminal Damage but contains a Point of Entry within the body of the Crime Report, this has probably been fiddled.
If an allegation of Grievous Bodily Harm has been recorded as Actual Bodily Harm or Common Assault but contains the fact that injuries were “Serious” then this has probably/possibly been fiddled. Need I go on?
I have mentioned this before, but when I last worked on Division (1999) the Met routinely ran an Ethical Audit (a small programme designed to hunt down anomalies such as these) on the CRIS database and bring the results to the attention of the relevant DCI. Does this no longer happen?
There are numerous people who could have told Uncle Tom what was happening and how it is done, but he seems to have chosen not to hear their voices.
Are we to assume then that there are 800,000 genuine “mistakes” across the country, every year, when crimes are recorded? 25% of Sexual Offence crimes contain genuine errors resulting in them being incorrectly recorded.
Or have HMIC just, ironically, classified the Whistleblowers’ allegations as No Crime in contradiction to their own guidelines?
Yes, also comments from Steve himself, eg:
THIN BLUE LINE COMMENT 15
“It is also no surprise that the HMIC could only ever scratch the surface of the consequence of these practices. We would hardly expect there to be a paper trail of guilt ridden evidence leading the inspectors to uncover the whole spiders web mess that has been created.”
THIN BLUE LINE COMMENT 17
“The heaviest mantle of responsibility must lie with the Chief and senior officers, who, from 1997 onward, lacked the courage, vision and moral compass to resist performance targeting and the payment of divisive corruptive incentive bonuses. Only they benefitted. Everyone else, rank and file and the general public were cheated of the police service we deserve.”
http://thinbluelineuk.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/hmic-its-official-police-have-fiddled.html
This one is worth a look, written by Prof Tim Hope, part of the group of us (inc James P) who are all frustrated by the lack of depth and thorough investigation into the crime stats fiasco:-
http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/dishonest-politician%E2%80%99s-guide-handling-police
Speaks a lot of sense.
Thanks Steve, I shall take a peek
Exactly. Thanks for great post.
Uncle Tom Cobblers and All have been “Caught red-handed” trashing WBs in exactly the way they criticise the police for wrt rape victims.
Their report may be curate’s egg but Tom’s a disgrace who’ll cure nothing if he’s happy to lie like BHH & May.