RARELY, it seems, does a week to go by without a member of the Government proclaiming they are winning the ‘war’ on crime – and flaunting the latest statistics to support their case. However, the statisticians have now begun to fight back. The country’s most senior data gatherer Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UK Statistics Authority, publicly scalded the Government for claiming data showed a 27 per cent fall in stab wound hospital admissions – for which Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has since apologised.
The sad truth is that if we continue in this spiral of manipulating figures to meet political ends, the public’s confidence in the entire criminal justice system will be undermined – and that can only benefit criminals.
A further salvo to be fired in the debate came from Rod Morgan, the former chairman of the Youth Justice Board, who accused the Government of “perpetrating smoke and mirror exercises” with youth crime statistics.
He claimed that more than 19,000 children and young people issued with penalty notices for minor offences of anti-social behaviour were not included in official figures – which were heralded at the time for showing a supposed 10 per cent reduction in youth crime.
Had this group been included, the reduction would have been wiped out, and the credibility of the Government’s youth crime agenda called into question.
A cynic might suggest that this group was deliberately excluded to suggest falling figures and promote the new initiative of fixed-penalty notices administered by the police.
During my career, I have witnessed the entrenchment of the target-culture and performance monitoring in the criminal justice system. The most worrying aspect has been the increasing frequency with which offenders are released with cautions.
My colleagues and I have certainly seen a notable decline in the number of young people being brought before the courts, while the numbers of offenders given final warnings – even for serious offences – is a further blow for the victims of crime.
Why this may have happened is, of course, a topic of intense debate. The Government and its supporters would claim this is a result of policy introduction and not a cause for concern, but others see and feel an increasing sense of lawlessness involving gangs of youths and simply do not believe what they hear at the dispatch box.
In an ideal world, the statistics would help us shed light on the true situation, but at present we are simply unable to take them at face value.
If we are to rebuild public confidence in the criminal justice system, there must be wholesale reform of the way data is collected and presented.
As has been suggested by several commentators already, there is a clear need for a truly independent statistics watchdog which controls government information. Of particular importance to criminal justice is that this body must also decide which information it collects.
While high conviction rates are no bad thing, the public needs to know if they are being achieved by significant reductions in the number of cases being brought to court.
Ultimately, politicians will always seek to present themselves in the best possible light and claim they are ‘winning’ the war on crime. Equally, there is a clear need to ensure progress can be measured, to allow good work and for successful initiatives to be recognised and expanded.
I certainly feel much more needs to be done to represent the feelings and worries of victims of crime. At present, the British Crime Survey is the only national indicator of the public’s fear of crime, but there is very little data measuring how many victims of crime are confident justice has been done, or indeed that they have been well served by authorities.
Furthermore, it is absolutely right that in the course of this debate, the issue of police accountability is raised. I, myself, have written to Ministers raising the issue of Whitehall targets putting undue pressure on the police and resulting in deeply unjust decisions in pursuit of improved performance figures.
And, throughout all the media stories lambasting ‘dodgy’ data amid cries of ’spin’ and statistical tomfoolery, the deep-rooted fears and needs of the victims of crime are nearly always forgotten - a lesson that those individuals and politicians in a position of power need to heed.
Grahame Stowe is senior partner at the law firm Grahame Stowe Bateson.
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