I really must wade into this thread as I too feel pretty strongly about it.
I gaze in wonder week after week, month after month and year after year at the ?declining crime rate? and I can?t help but wonder where on earth they get their figures from. As has already been said the prisons are bursting with offenders with literally hundreds if not thousands of offenders being ?let off? because either there is no room for them or too little evidence of simply not enough effort being brought to bear on what the police themselves now describe as a fairly low priority crime with low expectations of a result. What have all these prisoners done, if not robbing? Failed to pay their Council Tax?
Because in the vast majority of cases they fail to catch the offenders, they are less likely to bring any resources to bear and so sends the message that burglary has replaced car theft as the safe option where the potential rewards are high but the actual risks are low ? not least because most householders are too afraid to take any retaliatory action for fear of prosecution or the comfort of being armed and knowing that the house would not have access to any serious weapons, but also in the knowledge that the police mostly won?t be bothered to actually investigate it unless you happen to be someone seriously important.
In short, burglary is almost encouraged. Most people are out working during the day and thieves know that, so the vast majority of burglars are now on the day shift working civilised hours, I have knowledge of subtle burglars that take only a little at a time and treat that house as a cash machine. An awful lot of those people assume that they are getting forgetful and never realise they are being robbed until something of theirs surfaces elsewhere to blow the scam.
Another point well worth mentioning is where people have been cleaned out in a robbery and claim on their insurance only to find that a month later the original robbers return knowing that the house will be full of brand new stuff just waiting to be taken and not much chance that the victims have got around to serial numbers and pictures. The realisation that they have been under tabs by criminals and lined up for a scheduled hit is more than most honest people can bear. It is little wonder that folk are becoming traumatised by it. And they risk losing insurance cover as well!
I have always taken precautions and have been robbed ? in different places - six times to date!
If that is any kind of average then it points to literally millions of robberies per year even if only a small percentage of people are robbed as the records claim, and that in itself is a very serious state of affairs of which I suspect, is not of great importance to the powers-that-be who would much rather occupy the police for more high profile state security tasks ? and looking for celebrity cats!
There are hundreds of houses around where I live and we have one police officer here with a few guests to help out from time to time. We are lumbered with two PCSO?s that won?t attend any ?event? that may end in confrontation and knock off at midnight. Useful!
In fact I believe the crime figures about as much as I believe the unemployment figures or the inflation figures, Massage the figures and everybody will calm down and stop yelling about things that are not important.
I don?t know ANYBODY that has never been burgled. At least once! It is the major topic of conversation wherever I go, that and the stark fact that we are forbidden by law to do anything about it.
It is a great black cloud hanging over the country and will surreptitiously destroy (what?s left of) our society along with divisions and immigration - all issues that need to be given their proper recognition - and stop pretending that we are all idiots.
Or just maybe we are, just for putting up with it.
