Crime mapped out
11:07am Wednesday 3rd September 2008 in Where I Live By David Lindsell, Assistant Editor
The Met's crime maps allow residents to find their crime hotspots
Police have launched a website with crime maps of London which shows area by area how many burglaries, muggings and vehicle crimes have been committed.
The Metropolitan Police believe revealing the true scale of these three offences month by month will reassure people that crime levels are low.
Residents can enter their postcodes for more detailed information and discover where their local crime hotspots are.
The maps show that the crime rate for Kingston is below the average for the capital with 139 crimes in July, the last available month.
London Mayor Boris Johnson said: “Crime mapping was one of my major manifesto commitments and an important part of our strategy to tackle the number one issue for Londoners, crime and safety.
"This new online service means that Londoners will, at long last, be able to get information about crime levels in their neighbourhood at the click of a button.
"Crime mapping puts information into the hands of every London citizen about the levels of crimes as well as contact details of their local police officers.
"This is a major step forward in enabling Londoners to really able to assess the work of their local police in tackling the crimes that affect their neighbourhood.”
Deputy Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said: “There has been a growing and understandable appetite for people to know more about what crime is happening in their local areas.
"We've deliberately made these new crime maps as easily accessible and user friendly as possible with the aim of increasing communication and trust between the public and the police.
"We've worked hard to get this right in a fairly tight timeframe and we are pleased that the Information Commissioner has in fact commended the design and delivery of the maps. Despite the timescale, effective public consultation is really important to the Met and this has been ongoing since August.
"Indeed, we have found that in some cases Londoners’ perception of crime is higher than the reality and the crime maps may help to reassure communities about the general safety of their local area."
The site also contains the name and contact details of neighbourhood police officers allowing members of the public to contact them with crime concerns.
The Met said it planned to add other categories of crime in the future, which would make it more detailed like Surrey which already publishes a list of crimes for each borough.
Deputy mayor Kit Malthouse said: ”Boris promised crime maps for London during the election, and today we are delivering on that pledge.
“This new website will increase the visibility of what the police and local councils are actually doing to fight crime on the doorstep.
“For the first time Londoners won't have to guess if crime in their area is a problem.
“They will be able to see for themselves where the issues are, and what crime-fighting measures are working.
"The public deserve the truth on crime, and with this fantastic new tool, we hope they can join with us in driving ever better performance from their local police force and council."
• To see where your local crime hotspots are click here
Comments(4)
Chas Foulsham
says...
6:14pm Fri 5 Sep 08
will the same "Think Tank" also finally realise that, if we did, we would be the nation most likely to arrest the good Samaritan; most likely to allow the criminal to sue the rescuer for damages, and to then send him/her off on a little holiday as they are suffering from trauma. When are they going to "get real?"
Fred1
says...
8:02pm Fri 5 Sep 08
The think tank that Chas Foulsham is talking about is reform.co.uk.
Reform.co.uk generally tends to be politically right-wing, and favours low tax and minimum regulation of businesss.
The point that Reform's report "The Lawful Society" seems to making, is that the reason we stand by and do diddly squat about crime is because politicians give us sweet FA information about crime, and how exactly law enforcement is supposed to work. It's human nature to want closure on things. If we don't actually see any positive result from attempts to report crimes in the past, then it's hardly surprising that we don't bother reporting them in the future.
Once we the government start actually publishing audited hard data about crime, then it's possible for us to find out what sorts of policing and law enforcement actually work, and what sorts don't. And this will be visible and transparent to everyone.
Chas Foulsham's paranoid assertion that doing something about crime will result in bad consequences for the bloke who actually stands up to crime, and good consequences for the criminal, just goes to prove Reform's point. How on earth is it possible to know whether what Chas Foulsham is saying is true or not? If the government actually published crime stats, we'd know. But they don't publish them. So we don't know, and we have to take Chas Foulsham's word for it.
We're all totally clueless about crime, since the powers that be never give us any information about it. And as a result, we let our worst fears about it get the better of us.
Basically, Reform seem to be arguing in favour of things like league tables for police forces by their rate of crime clearup, and league tables for prisons by the rate at which their ex-inmates reoffend.
Having said all that, I haven't read the report all the way through; I've only read the first couple of paragraphs of the summary, although I strongly suspect that this is two paragraphs more than Chas Foulsham has read. ;)
Gerry1
says...
8:16am Sat 6 Sep 08
teltheblue_
says...
11:06am Fri 25 Mar 11
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