UK murders/manslaughters at lowest for 20 years

[Diamond]

It raises the question of how one can try and bring murder/manslaughter rates down on a policy basis.

It's easy to see how you could do it in terms of theft/burglary/muggings etc... but it's difficult to see what kind of deterrent you can offer to murder and manslaughter other than the message that you will inevitably be caught.

In which case does that mean that it is justifiable for the relative authorities to encourage a representation of violent crime in which detection and conviction of violent crimes is far higher than the true scenario?

Is it OK to deliberately lie to the public in the knowledge that such lies will make them safer?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It just seems weird, if all the figures from all the other crimes are going up then it's quite strange that murder has had a 17% drop tbh. I just wonder what's going on.

I think it's a mistake to lump all 'crime' together. It's not one continuum – someone could commit a murder yet be horrified by the idea that they were thought to have done it in the course of a robbery, or that they had raped their victim first.

Most murder is a very different kind of crime from theft or burglary.

 

[IMR]

... but it's difficult to see what kind of deterrent you can offer to murder and manslaughter other than the message that you will inevitably be caught.

There already are quite effective mechanisms, such as a criminal justice system which will (or is supposed to) retaliate on your behalf if someone attacks you or those close to you.

Which most people seem to prefer over taking on the dangerous burden of seeking revenge in person and getting embroiled in feuds.

As for propaganda boosting the impression that you're sure to be caught eventually if you commit serious crime, we already have that in the form of police dramas on telly, detective novels and so on.

I don't honestly know what can be done in the short-term to reduce the murder rate, except increase prison sentences for violent but non-lethal crimes, thus intercepting those who'd otherwise pose some significant risk of turning into killers.

 

[Diamond]

Minority Report?

 

[IMR]

Minority Report?

Not sure if or how soon that would happen in Western societies.

Widespread childhood genetic profiling is maybe more likely to happen first in countries like Singapore, South Korea, China.

 

[Diamond]

Yeah, I could definitely see that happening in somewhere like Singapore. Scary stuff.

 

[SpookyFrank]

...and shoplifting rising by 10%.

That's what we like to see

 

[Stoat Boy]

But probably has little or no effect on thick twats hyped up on testosterone, booze etc.

Perhaps, and its pure speculation on my part, the new licensing laws for pubs and clubs means that people are not all getting drunk at the same time ? Which might lead to a decline in murders committed whilst under the influence ?

 

[Jeff Robinson]

You wouldn't think it by reading the papers but it seems that the murder rate has plummeted.

I blame the immigrunts.

 

[detective-boy]

I would heed the comment earlier about the small numbers of homicides. I cannot see any obvious reason why there should be a significant fall in the total on a permanent basis - my money would be on it being a blip, at least most of the fall.

I would like to see broken down homicide stats by "type" for want of a better description. Ever since the gun / knife murders amongst young people for nothing more than "respect" issues started I have said that that category has definitely gone up from ten years or so ago (though it may well be going down again now - Manchester (until a couple of weeks ago) had it's first year without a gun murder for a decade apparently) ... and so if the totals are staying the same (let alone going down) there must be a good news story in there somewhere. I suspect domestic abuse related murders are a big faller, thanks to the far more interventionist, positive arrest / prosecution polcies introduced over the last decade. Abuse related murders (children, elderly, other vulnerable groups) may have also (despite high profile exceptions) due to vastly improved multi-agency protection arrangements. Proper organised crime related murders may well have fallen too, thanks to targetted disruption of the organised criminals activity, certainly in ultra-violent stuff.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Maybe it's just down to less murder victims having the courage to make an official complaint to the police

 

[London_Calling]

The Guardian has an interesting piece on this today, though no clear answers:

The striking decline in the number of killings in England and Wales may be due to advances in medical science saving the lives of potential victims, the Home Office suggested today.

The long-term homicide rate in England and Wales peaked in 2002-03 when the inclusion of 172 of Harold Shipman's victims inflated the total to 1,047. The 23 Chinese cockle pickers who died in Morecambe Bay in 2004 and the 52 victims of the London bombings in 2005 also increased the toll in those years.

The fall of 136 from last year's total of 784 to this year's 648 was described today by Home Office statisticians as "very striking". But officials say they will not be able to pinpoint the reasons for the fall until a breakdown of the homicide figures is available in January.

The figures published today for fatal shootings and stabbings fail to provide a whole explanation. Gun crime deaths fell in 2008-09 from 53 to 38. Fatal stabbings, which usually make up a third of all murders, also fell from 270 to 252, but these figures are not sufficient to explain the drop of 136 in all killings.

The long-term homicide figures show the average death toll in the 1950s was around the 300 mark before climbing to 400 to 500 in the 1960s and 1970s. This year's reduction takes the figure back to the levels last seen in the early 1980s.

Home Office criminologists say that female murder victims are more likely to be killed by someone they know. In 2007-08, 73% of female victims knew the main suspect, compared to only 48% of male victims. Nearly half the women were killed by their current or former partner.

Link

Only 38 deaths by shooting - not in London but in all of England and Wales. Given how the streets have been portrayed since Jean Charles de Menezes it, would have been easy to form a very different impression.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Only 38 deaths by shooting - not in London but in all of England and Wales. Given how the streets have been portrayed since Jean Charles de Menezes it, would have been easy to form a very different impression.

39 if you include de Menezes himself

 

[London_Calling]

He didn't die in 08-09.

 

[detective-boy]

Given how the streets have been portrayed since Jean Charles de Menezes it, would have been easy to form a very different impression.

Why link JCdM with gun murders? He, and the operation in which he died, was absolutely nothing to do with gun murders.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Why link JCdM with gun murders? He, and the operation in which he died, was absolutely nothing to do with gun murders.

Except it was a gun murder.

 

[detective-boy]

Except it was a gun murder.

No. It wasn't, on the basis of the evidence gathered. It was a gun killing. It was a homicide to the extent that that is the case with a death resulting from a breach of health and safety at work legislation and so it would be wrong to characterise it as an entirely lawful killing (although it was in relation to the individual officer who pulled the trigger), but it wasn't even a manslaughter. It certainly wasn't a murder.

(Funny really, seeing as in this context no-one seems to want to take any notice of the extensive, detailed evidence given by any number of police officers on oath and widely reported and yet on a parallel thread elsewhere everyone is insisting that the exact reported account of what the police said is the absolute truth ... )

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I still want to know how many people go missing each year?

 

[detective-boy]

I still want to know how many people go missing each year?

That's sort of an impossible question to answer.

Lots (thousands and thousands) of people go "missing" as in they disappear from where they usually are and friends / relatives / workmates notice they have gone.

The vast majority sooner or later turn up somewhere else and to the extent that they knew where they were and they were voluntarily there, they were never actually "missing" as such in the first place.

Some (probably hundreds) aren't seen again. Some (many, maybe even most) of these go "missing" in circumstances in which they may well have disappeared voluntarily to get away from shite in their lives of one sort or another. Some are depressed and are feared to have taken their lives. Some (again many, maybe even most) of these turn up dead having apparently committed suicide.

In a few cases (maybe tens at most each year) someone goes "missing" in circumstances which provide no possible explanations at all and are never seen again. They may well have been murdered somewhere along the line and their bodies never recovered ... but there is no reason to suspect that any more than suspecting that, for some unknown reason, they voluntarily disapeared and have somewhere set themselves up in a new life or that they were depressed without anyone knowing and they have committed suicide and not been found.

I have never seen any empirical research on the topic and, to a large extent, it would be impossible to do so ... if someone is never seen again you'll never know what becomes of them by definition ... the best you could do would be to try and categorise the circumstances of disappearance and then using the proportions found safe / committed suicide / murdered from those of each category that did come to light extrapolate the numbers in each from those that were never found again.

But this assumes that everyone murdered would even be missed ... loads of people could go missing and no-one even report it - this is a recognised problem with teenage Asian girls from some communities who disappear from school, possibly for forced marriages in Pakistan / India and who simply do not reappear for the next year.

I suspect that, one way or another, there are significantly more homicides than are recorded but my professional judgement would suggest that it would be measured in tens rather than hundreds each year.

 

[London_Calling]

No. It wasn't, on the basis of the evidence gathered. It was a gun killing. It was a homicide to the extent that that is the case with a death resulting from a breach of health and safety at work legislation and so it would be wrong to characterise it as an entirely lawful killing (although it was in relation to the individual officer who pulled the trigger), but it wasn't even a manslaughter. It certainly wasn't a murder.

(Funny really, seeing as in this context no-one seems to want to take any notice of the extensive, detailed evidence given by any number of police officers on oath and widely reported and yet on a parallel thread elsewhere everyone is insisting that the exact reported account of what the police said is the absolute truth ... )

On oath ! Well, why didn't you say !!

You've got a job for life if you want to convince the general public in London it wasn't at least manslaughter - based on the evidence of those passengers sitting next to de Menezes and directly opposite him when he was killed.

As for linking the death of de Menezes with gun crime, you'd know more than me but it goes something like:

1. Jean Charles de Menezes is killed
2. Guns from eastern Europe, £50 on the street, etc, etc, etc
3. Of course the police must carry guns more often, because the streets of London are more dangerous each year
Aim: Carrying guns is validated, infer mistakes can happen, pressure in the wake of de Menezes' death is eased - you just blur the lines.

 

[Jonti]

It's speculation, but if the jury had known they could disregard the Coroner's instruction it is hard to imagine them returning any verdict but unlawful killing.

Prior to the judgement, the Coroner, Sir Michael Wright, instructed the jury that in his interpretation of the law they could not return a verdict of unlawful killing based on the inquiry evidence presented. On 12 December 2008 the jury returned an open verdict, which strictly means that the jury confirms that the death is suspicious but is unable to reach any of the other verdicts open to them. In addition to the verdict, in answer to 12 additional questions over the incident, the jury concluded the claim that police had shouted a warning before firing was false and that although De Menezes stood up he did not advance on the armed police.

source

 

[detective-boy]

...
2. Guns from eastern Europe, £50 on the street, etc, etc, etc
3. Of course the police must carry guns more often, because the streets of London are more dangerous each year.

Oh right ... I hadn't realised that the only reason there were armed officers involved in the JCdM thing was because of guns from eastern Europe. There was me thinking that they'd turned up with guns because it was an operation aimed at locating some suicide bombers. How could I possibly have been so stupid. Thank you for pointing out the real reason why they had guns that day ...

 

[detective-boy]

It's speculation, but if the jury had known they could disregard the Coroner's instruction it is hard to imagine them returning any verdict but unlawful killing.

Indeed they may have done ... and it would have been a perfectly legitimate conclusion to reach and would have been entirely consistent with the finding of organisational responsibility for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act ... but if there is no way that even that finding would have led to anyone being properly convicted of manslaughter.

 

[Kaka Tim]

They thought de Menezes was part of the jihadi bomb gang so he was executed by the british state to send a message to the 'terrorists'. It was Murder in most peoples eyes.

Thats what is was however the nicities of the legal system define it -
as 'a regretable administrative error' probably.

 

[London_Calling]

Oh right ... I hadn't realised that the only reason there were armed officers involved in the JCdM thing was because of guns from eastern Europe. There was me thinking that they'd turned up with guns because it was an operation aimed at locating some suicide bombers. How could I possibly have been so stupid. Thank you for pointing out the real reason why they had guns that day ...

Post Stockwell, neither I nor the public are conflating the issues or arguments, it's your former colleagues.

Despite the Met bullshit, it seems to me the general public remain clear-headed about the difference between the manslaughter de Menezes, and the justifications for increasing numbers armed police on the streets of London.

 

[detective-boy]

... and the justifications for increasing numbers armed police on the streets of London.

You got some statistics for that claim? (for your information, the introduction of the Armed Response Vehicles in the early 1990s very significantly reduced the numbers of firearms trained officers in London and there has been no step-change since.)

 

[London_Calling]

You got some statistics for that claim? (for your information, the introduction of the Armed Response Vehicles in the early 1990s very significantly reduced the numbers of firearms trained officers in London and there has been no step-change since.)

Second link on Google - there are plenty: This from 6 months after the manslaughter of de Menezes:

Independent:

Up to 200 extra armed police officers are to be deployed on the streets of London in response to rising gun crime and the shooting dead of a police woman in Bradford.

Under plans being drawn up by Scotland Yard, armed police units will be on patrol around the clock in trouble spots in the capital.

The changes would see the Metropolitan Police's firearms unit, CO19, expanding from 700 to 900.