Aggers wrote:Why? - because i believe the police make sure that crime appears =to be falling by the simple process of not prosecuting in a good many instances.
Ah it is much more insidious than that. I have direct confirmation that they are reporting in crime clusters. If 3 crmies are committed in the same act, the Police are clustering them. Even if they cannot be clustered becuase they are different sections of the law. Then they report them as a single offence.
so whereas Police used to report each and every offence as a single item, now they group them and report the group as a single item. My information is that crimes, based on traditional reporting, are 50% - 300% higher than the reporting figures would suggest.
As for the rest of the perceptions? It depends where you come from. If you ask a white man in Liecester what the immigration count is, you are going to get a massively higher count than if you ask someone in Kendal.
Also if you ask someone about JSA, they assume "benefits". But, in fact, JSA is just the smallest tip of the total benefits pile. Pensions are <50% of the total benefits pile
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablo ... e-spendingSo "what the people know" might actually be more than the Independent would like them to know....