There is some controversy about these trends insofar as reports to police show an increase, whereas the Office's British Crime Survey (a national interview survey of people's experience of crime) concludes that the increase is accounted for by a combination of changed counting procedures and increased reporting. The survey claims that actual levels of violence have been falling in recent years, though the fall is tapering off.

Perception and Reality

It is often argued that fear of crime is more of a problem than crime itself. But this supposes that there is some sort of 'correct' level of worry we should all have.
Public concern about crime is governed by all sorts of factors.

One issue is confidence that reporting a crime to the police will lead to someone being arrested for the offence. It is quite easy to obtain statistics for the rate of 'clearups'. These are recorded for each Borough by the Met Police and it would have been a useful addition to the Stoke Newington Forum report to see them broken down for the four Hackney wards so we could see what was happening in Stoke Newington.

A visit to the Met Police web site ( www.met.police.uk/crimestatistics/  ) enabled me to do some rough calculations on the clearup rate for various crimes in the London Borough of Hackney as a whole but not for the individual wards.

The clearup rate for violence against the person appears to have fallen from 27 percent in the twelve months April 2001/March 2002 to 23 percent in April 2003/March 2004. So only a quarter of incidents involving violence against the person considered serious enough by the victim to be reported to the police actually result in an arrest. This is broadly in line with London as a whole. Police effectiveness is very much still an issue, as it has been for a number of years.

Another factor in how worried people are about crime is the impact that various types of crime have on people's lives. Local Authority Crime and Disorder Audits often try and put a monetary value on this.

The last Hackney audit in 2001 estimated the impact of violence against the person at almost £128 million. This included costs associated with physical and emotional impact on the victim, health service as well as police and criminal justice resources.
But there are wider issues not easily reducible to monetary costs. How much does fear of crime influence our behaviour; for example not leaving the house at certain times of the day, not going to certain areas, or worry about walking at night?

Take the figures for disorder. These are fairly high and include all sorts of incidents categorised as 'disturbance' in public or private premises, 'community problems' and drunkenness. They fall short of actual offences such as violence against the person. One thinks of rowdy youth, aggressive begging and similar incidents. These are the targets for the government's new 'Anti-Social Behaviour Orders'. But how worried people are about such disorder depends on a number of things. If you feel isolated and you know there is a lot of violence and drug dealing in your area, then you'll find a gang of drunk, disorderly people more threatening than if you live in a cohesive community where you know everyone anyway and can rely on their parents to give them a sound reprimand.

Certainly I've always found Stoke Newington a friendly place, and even waiting for the bus late at night I'm not particularly worried about disorder or crime. I appreciate this is not the case for everyone and in all areas of Stokey. Reported incidents of disorder have certainly fallen considerably. This might be because people are less worried but, on the other hand, it might be because they have given up hope that anything can be done. I understand that a new Crime and Disorder Audit to cover the period 2001-4 is to be produced by March next year. It would be very useful indeed to conduct, as part of this audit, a detailed interview survey of residents aimed at getting answers to some of these questions.

So what can be said about life in Stokey? There is a high crime rate but it's not that different from other areas of Hackney and, one would guess, similar areas of most large cities. 'How much does fear of crime influence our behaviour; for example not leaving the house at certain times of the day, not going to certain areas, or worry about walking at night?'