There was a similar issue around the 'mugging' panic in London (was it the
1970s or 80s?) when the 'Daily Mail' was making a lot of mileage out of the
Met's crime figures. Here the problem was victims reporting their
assailants as black, _even when they had not seen the assailants_.
(Presumably because they 'Daily Mail' had told them that muggers were
black!)
Robert Moore
--On 19 April 2004 09:45 +0100 David Symes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'm sure others will make a similar point, but while agreeing that the
> "truth" is important for sensible political discussion , we should
> remember that Home Office figures tend to reflect reported crime not
> actual crime levels. These reports are then interpreted by local officers
> as being or not being racial crimes. There is as a result considerable
> scope for inaccuracies and drawing of spurious conclusions.
>
> I am reminded of a recent exercise in Yorkshire that put Police back on
> the beat in rural villages. Instead of crime being reduced, newspapers
> reported that crime had risen and concluded that the experiment had
> failed to curb crime. Of course what had happened is reported crime had
> increased, probably because it was easier to report minor offences direct
> to the policeman in the street instead of phoning or calling into the
> (not so) local police station.
>
> I wonder if the comparative figures for white and non-white racist attacks
> might be subject to similar reporting related problems.
>
>
>
> David Symes
> email: [log in to unmask]
> Tel: 0114 2303145
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: email list for Radical Statistics [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Alan Truelove
> Sent: 19 April 2004 02:27
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Lying about racial crime statitics
>
> Statements regarding racial crime in England & Wales in recently
> distributed election material are clearly correct (even though collection
> of such statistics by the Govt. appears to have stopped in 2000)
> (a) Roughly twice as many racial crimes are inflicted on whites as on non-
> whites. (See figures for 1995 and 1999
> http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/s95race00.pdf
> (click on Ch 8; bottom left of page)
>
> The 1995 figures (victim assessing race of perpetrator) show that 143,000
> crimes were committed by whites, and 238,000 by non-whites. Assuming for
> the moment that one person commits one crime in this dataset, this means
> that 0.27% of whites committed such a crime, and 7.3% of non-whites.
>
> I would be interested in comments; but the Govt and BBC should give over
> from implying (even in weasel word terms) that the above is not correct.
> One can understand the Govt. suppressing the collection of statistics for
> political reasons, as befits a 3rd-world shambles like the UK. (This would
> never be permitted by the scientific community in the US, for example).
> But the BBC should be ashamed of itself - as also the British press that
> routinely ignores non-white crime. E.g. the murder of the Manchester
> soldier 22-year-old Lee Martin beaten to death by anti-white (presumably
> Muslim) racist thugs according to, & mentioned solely in, a small article
> on p.3 Manchester Evening News, April 7. (Not even to be found in its
> archives)
> It is a responsibility of the Statistical community to make sure that
> vital information of this kind, which clearly could have a direct effect
> on forthcoming elections, is not concealed or fudged.
> Alan Truelove 3444 Surrey Ln Falls Church Va 22042 & Canterbury. 571-242-
> 0153(US).
>
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Professor Robert Moore
Department of Sociology,Social
Policy and Social Work Studies
University of Liverpool
L69 7BZ
44 (0) 1352 714456
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