You heard it. Crime, according to the government, no doubt using their 'favoured method of calculation' is down 5%. If this continues then I'm going to start leaving the keys in my car and ask some stranger to fetch me a tenner from the hole-in-the-wall using my Amex Platinum credit card.

What I'm really looknig forward to is seeing all those ugly blinds and shutters coming off business properties' windows, not having to renew my annual Burglar Alarm monitoring service (presently £421.26 per annum) and best of all, seeing a huge reduction in the cost of my business insurance (now well in excess of £4,000 p. a.).

Think of all the money I'll save, what with crime continuing to fall. I'm so happy I'm going to buy you all a drink. The first one to my desk, I'll give you a blank cheque; go get a round in. It's fine, I trust you.

Afterall, crime's down. Didn't you know?!

Ousetunes, I too share your cynicism.

Figs possible do show a drop because many people don't even bother to report thefts nowadays ... the reasons being

a) you haven't got a hope in hell of getting your stuff back

b) if the thieves are caught punishment is pathetic

c) folk who do report crimes do so mainly to get a crime number so that they can make a claim on insurance. The numbers of people who self finance goods/repairs is increasing because of rocketing premiums after a claim is made. Therefore seems little point in hanging on the phone for half hour while some little plod finds the time to talk to you.

Still we all know the truth don't we?

I wonder if they use the same calculator for crime as they do for unemployment??

Naaaaah silly me...if they did there wouldnt "appear" to be any crime at all!!!!!

The news on the radio just now was that violent crime was UP by 9% in the last quarter of 2004. "Due to different recording methods".....seems that folk are more ready to complain about it than they were in 2003 or the police actually log the complaints they previously used to ignore ?? :confused:

Well about 3 weeks ago I heard of 2 gun crimes in one week, a chip shop on Herries Road was shot at, it was aimed at a car but they missed and it hit the top of the shutter while people were in the shop, could have been nasty. Then the second was on Ecclesall Road a gun hold up, not sure if it was shop or post office. Then last night there was a stabbing and a murder. It seems I keep hearing about loads of stuff so other people must get to hear also, doesn't sound too like crime is low to me.

I work at the Northern Gen hospital and we get sent crime bulletins by email and there's certainly plenty of crime to our cars and equipment on site, no end of Computers keep going missing, especially laptops. I arrived at work Sunday and the downstairs window had been broken and entry had been tried. The cctv cameras are being installed alover the place, we even now have to lock the ward doors after 5pm and let people in by intercom, crazy.