Boris Watch

Er.  Slight side effect from the publicity around crime mapping.

A recent report to Hammersmith and Fulham Council shows that the borough’s much-publicised £1.8m 24/7 policing scheme has only prevented 223 crimes.

The 24/7 policing pilot which began in April 2007 was to reduce crime by at least 10 per cent each year in Fulham Broadway and Shepherd’s Bush Green wards.
But a report to Hammersmith and Fulham councillors states: “It is clear that the first objective has not been achieved.”

The first year of the scheme cost £1.867m and there were just 223 less crimes in both wards – meaning that preventing each of these crimes cost £8,372.20.

Oh well.  Perhaps there’s a reasonable explanation.  Here’s local Tory Greg Smith:

“The pilots are reducing the number of crimes with victims and uncovering the true level of crime in those wards.”

Ah – more police activity means more crimes detected, so presumably the ‘before’ crime figures on Boris Johnson’s shiny new website are officially wrong, as indeed are any crime figures for wards where the local council and the Met isn’t spending millions uncovering the ‘true level of crime’.  So the point of the £210,000 crime mapping website was?  Perhaps the Forensic Audit Panel (which includes LBHF’s leader) can help?

The two wards are Shepherds Bush Green and Fulham Broadway.  Here are the figures from Boris’ pride and joy:

Shepherd’s Bush Green – comparing July 07 to July 08:

• Burglary – up
• Criminal damage – up
• Drugs offences – way up
• Fraud or Forgery – up
• Other notifiable offences – up
• Robbery – down (phew!)
• Sexual Offences – down
• Theft and Handling – down
• Violence against the person – up

Oh dear.  Even the soothing colours of the new maps site show a rise from 1.76 to 2.54 crimes per 1000 people between June and July this year, although the year on year trend is down an impressive 16.7%.  Mind you, it was down 12% the previous year.  This is of course only for those crimes that register on the Mappa BoJo.

What about Fulham Broadway?

• Burglary – up
• Criminal damage – down
• Drugs offences – way, way up
• Fraud or Forgery – down
• Other notifiable offences – no change
• Robbery – down (phew!)
• Sexual Offences – up
• Theft and Handling – no change
• Violence against the person – down

The trends – a creditable 23% down, after actually increasing before that.

So what’s the real picture?  Well, it’s bad news for crime mapping – if the figures (for drug offences, in this case) can be plausibly spun as either bad news (‘more crime!’) or good news (‘better policing!’) then how is the public supposed to read the raw numbers and come to a truthful opinion?  No amount of reassuring pastel coloured Google Mapping will tell you that the local council and police have been concentrating in area X, which is why more crimes are being detected, or that the reason your area has low crime is that no one ever gets nicked.  Another problem – how long after you start your policing project do you expect the deterrent effect to kick in?  You might get a rise in offences detected, but surely it should eventually reduce to below the original number?  Frankly it’s doing my head in – there are too many variables and too few facts.

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