Comment: real crime

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It is disturbing to learn that police statistics are "inaccurate" and even "dishonest" in their under recording of crime. That is the verdict of the MPA, the body responsible for scrutiny of the Met, in a study we report today. It is unlikely that the most serious offences are wrongly categorised. However, there is evidence that certain crimes involving violence are misleadingly recorded as lesser offences. For example, according to the report, incidents of robbery - stealing using violence or the threat of violence - are sometimes wrongly recorded as cases of theft, defined as stealing that does not involve violence. In the case of mobile phones, some police stations will not take a report of theft unless the victim knows the phone's 15-digit IMEI number. This leads to incidents being under-reported.

This is unacceptable. The police must have an accurate picture of all types of crime - for example, to reveal the behaviour of low-level offenders who may move onto more serious crime. The report blames the pressure on borough commanders and Scotland Yard from central government to meet crime-reduction targets. But targets imposed from above often end up creating not improvement, but target-chasing behaviour. When our security is at stake, that is not good enough. The Lib-Dems' Mayoral candidate Brian Paddick believes that a further factor in the under-recording of crime is people's increased reluctance to believe the police will take effective action. If we are to fight crime, we must first know how much crime there is.