New police crime maps out

[boxtops]

I had a look at my area - bit scary although most it was ASBOs - but it says "2 violent crime" in my road. Anyone know how far back the data goes? Someone was murdered over the road, but that must be 10 years ago..... http://www.police.uk/crime/

[BagPussAA]

It is just the current month I think as you can then look back on previous months data as well.

[boxtops]

Crumbs, they must have done the 2 episodes of violent crime when I was out, then - I wonder what it was?!

[Fibonacci]

the heading on my postcode page says Street-level crime and ASB in August 2011
"Hey, let's be careful out there"

[ummmm]

2 on my street. 1 anti social behaviour and 1 robbery...

On the crime section it says 'view crime data for previous months'...The area covered by one postcode is quite large though. Much larger than the area I actually live in...

[boxtops]

I found that ummm, if you zoom in on the map it spreads it out in much more detail. First of all it said 242 (help!), then the actual was 4.

[jno]

holy smoke, 893 in my area in September. 114 violent crimes. When's all this happening? It actually feels a really safe area, but maybe I'm living in a fool's paradise here.

[DrFilth]

they may have fiddled the figures like on this link to make it look better

http://menmedia.co.uk...statistics-for-august

[DrFilth]

riots on the streets of manchester yet they had the lowest crime figure for 4 months

>> Data released by the government on the street level police.uk crime maps show the number of offences reported in the riot hotspots actually went down in August compared to previous months.

There were just 21 crimes reported in the smashed up shopping precincts of St Ann's Square during the whole month of August – the lowest figure for four months. <<

[murraymints]

Is there a site for scotland..?

[andy-hughes]

What on earth is the point of this nonsense - to say nothing of 'comparison' with other police forces?

Apart from alarming people with no genuine good reason, the notion of finding out crime stats for your street seems a waste of valuable time and money.

So there were three burglaries in my street - what am i supposed to do?

So my police force performs less effectively that Devon & Cornwall - and ... what?

Knowledge with purpose and effect for positive change is a wonderful concept - this does nothing any good for anyone except kid people that the government are doing something about crime and criminals. They may be - but this is not it.

[ludwig]

Where do you live jno, downtown mogadishu?

[jno]

remember the August figures may include rioting, very much a one-off.

Andy, if you find your area is a burglary hot spot, you might for instance want to get some more locks. Nothing much you can do about Asbos, though.

Zooming in I find my immediate area (say a mile all round) is pretty calm, but a two-mile radius brings in really quite a lot of crime. So this does tell me about areas I might like to avoid.

[DrFilth]

jno have a look at my link

[jno]

I've always thought of it as more like downtown Beverly Hills, ludwig... it's just leafy London fringes. But I suppose the thing about outer London is you can go from rich areas to poor ones quite quickly.

[jno]

interesting link, DrFilth. For August our overall figure was 1002, a bit above September's 893, but then again there wasn't any rioting any where near us as far as I know. So maybe this place is just the new Tombstone.

[ludwig]

If people use this as tool to decide where to live, in theory it will drive house prices in the 'bad' areas down even further, and it will have a polarising effect until you end up with ghettos and gated communities.

I can see the usefulness of it, but things like this worry me, as do government league tables of any kind. I agree with andy-hughes to some extent.

[boxtops]

Doesn't look like it, murraymints...... http://www.borisbacke...ime-map-for-scotland/

[firewatch]

this has been around since early this year an came in handy when house hunting!!! means i can keep an eye on the area we live where my hubby works and where other freinds/family live.

[jno]

well, I'm in favour of openness. Why should people unknowlingly buy a home in a high-crime area because nobody told them about it? This isn't basically a league table, though no doubt you can check your crime rates against other areas if you want (and police certainly should be comparing their clear-up rates and deciding if they're falling short). It's sharing hard information about your neighbourhood. The opposite is leaving people in ignorance. I think knowledge is better than ignorance.