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Comment: Mapping crime
Evening Standard03.09.08
The Mayor has been quick to make available his promised online area-by-area maps of crime, which will give residents new information about crime affecting their area, or areas they are considering moving to.
It is now up to individuals, residents' associations and council-estate tenants' associations to respond by demanding more from local police, and to help by reporting crime consistently and co-operating with investigations.
A report from the Reform think-tank this week found Britain's “walk on by” society inclined to leave the fight against crime entirely to police. Of course, stabbings of the kind we report today inevitably make people think twice about intervening.
Nonetheless, there is much that communities can do, by way of providing information and shaping crime-fighting priorities, to improve law and order locally.
By focusing attention on the actual problems in a neighbourhood, rather than perceptions and fears, these maps should help.
