Are our streets safer now? Essay

Are our streets safer now? There are lots of people in Scotland that think the crime rates are decreasing and that our streets are safer, on the other hand many people also think crime rates are increasing and our streets are more dangerous than ever. I’m going to show both view points on my chosen topic – Are our streets safer now? The people that think our streets are safer now are government and police and those who support the government’s judgement and their political party and newspapers that support conservatives and liberal democrats. They believe the streets are safer because of official government statistics which are formed from reported and therefore recorded crime. In 2006 official government statistics showed that recorded crimes had decreased by 5% from the previous year. The problem with recorded crime and statistics is, not all crimes are reported, and as a consequence are not recorded. Overall crime figures may have decreased but if we were to look at all the different types of crime, it may show that the majority of crime has gone up and only a minority has gone down. The public who think are streets are more dangerous are government opposition and other opposing parties and those who support the newspapers that support these parties. The reason they believe this, is that more serious crimes have risen but minor crimes that have gone down cover up the real picture. In 2006 the Scottish crime survey showed that for theft and assault only 24% of incidents had actually been reported and recorded of the 109 killings in Scotland in 2005 and 2006, 31 of these people were killed in Glasgow alone. This was a dramatic increase from 4. 49 per 100,000 people to 5. 34 per 100,000 people. And Bill Aitken – MSP – described the murder rate figures in Scotland as â€Å"depressing and alarming! † Statistics whish measure the amount of crime that takes place in Scotland is mostly based on reported crimes. Reported crimes are offences that have been reported to the police. There is a problem with only using statistics that are based on reported crimes because many crimes take place that are not reported to the police. One reason is people do not report crimes that are trivial. For example, many minor thefts are not reported because the victim does not think that theft is important enough to contact the police. Another reason is many people are frightened to report certain crimes that have taken place. Some victims are intimidated by criminals. When criminal activity is examined it is important to remember that the official statistics produced by the government may only tell part of the story. There is an argument to say that crime is now worse now than it was in –for example – 18th century London, when jack the ripper was around or just after the Crimean war. There were lots of thieves, murderers and rapists about but you may only have known this if you lived in that certain town or village. Nowadays we are more aware of crime due to the media. When something happens we know about it straight away, therefore leaded the public into believing that the streets are more dangerous now than ever, but in my opinion I think they are no better or worse than they were in the 18th century. In conclusion our streets are not safer or more dangerous than before, because crime is exactly the same in Britain as it always has been and always will be. There will always be criminals and there’s nothing that anyone can really do to stop them from committing minor and major crimes, we can only try to prevent it.