Glock-A-Roo
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http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment071800c.html
Fear in Britain
They have no guns ? so they have a lot of crime.
Dr. Paul Gallant practices optometry in Wesley Hills, NY. Dr.
Joanne Eisen practices dentistry in Old Bethpage, NY. Both are
Research Associates at the Independence Institute, where Dave
Kopel is Research Director.
The furor over the Philadelphia police encounter
with a would-be carjacker and cop-killer isn't the
only public-relations nightmare facing the city's
police department. Two thousand reported sex
crimes went "uninvestigated" by Philadelphia
police between 1995 and 1997 because of
"pressure to keep the department's crime numbers
low," reported ABC News on July 11. Earlier this
year, the department admitted "misreporting"
thousands of sexual assaults during the past decade
"to make the city appear safer than it was."
Actually, Philadelphia is not the only city to
underreport crime in recent years. The 1994
Clinton/Schumer crime bill has resulted in lots of
federal dollars for local police departments ? and
also lots of pressure to get crime statistics down
so that the federal government can announce the
success of its policy of federalizing crime control.
But when it comes to fudging crime statistics, even
the finest Philadelphia number-rearranger can't
compare to our British cousins.
During the nineteenth century, and most of the
twentieth, Britain enjoyed a well-deserved
reputation as an unusually safe and crime-free
nation, compared to the United States or
continental Europe. No longer.
To the great consternation of British authorities
concerned about tourism revenue, a June CBS
News report proclaimed Great Britain "one of the
most violent urban societies in the Western
world." Declared Dan Rather: "This summer,
thousands of Americans will travel to Britain
expecting a civilized island free from crime and
ugliness...[But now] the U.K. has a crime
problem....worse than ours."
A headline in the London Daily Telegraph back on
April 1, 1996, said it all: "Crime Figures a Sham,
Say Police." The story noted that "pressure to
convince the public that police were winning the
fight against crime had resulted in a long list of
ruses to 'massage' statistics," and "the recorded
crime level bore no resemblance to the actual
amount of crime being committed."
For example, where a series of homes was
burgled, they were regularly recorded as one
crime. If a burglar hit 15 or 20 flats, only one
crime was added to the statistics.
A brand-new report from the Inspectorate of
Constabulary charges Britain's 43 police
departments with systemic under-classification of
crime?for example, by recording burglary as
"vandalism." The report lays much of the blame on
the police's desire to avoid the extra paperwork
associated with more serious crimes.
Britain's justice officials have also kept crime
totals down by being careful about what to count.
American homicide data are based on arrests, but
British data are based on final dispositions.
Suppose that three men kill a woman during an
argument outside a bar. They are arrested for
murder, but because of problems with
identification (the main witness is dead), charges
are eventually dropped. In American crime
statistics, the event counts as a three-person
homicide, but in British statistics it counts as
nothing at all.
Another "common practice," according to one
retired Scotland Yard senior officer, is "falsifying
clear-up rates by gaining false confessions from
criminals already in prison." (Britain has far fewer
protections against abusive police interrogations
than does the United States.) As a result, thousands
of crimes in Great Britain have been "solved" by
bribing or coercing prisoners to confess to crimes
they never committed.
Explaining away the disparity between crime
reported by victims and the official figures became
so difficult that, in April 1998, the British Home
Office was forced to change its method of
reporting crime, and a somewhat more accurate
picture began to emerge.
This past January, official street-crime rates in
London were more than double the official rate
from the year before.
So what's a British politician to do when elections
coincide with an out-of control crime wave?
Calling for "reasonable" gun laws is no longer an
option. Handguns have been confiscated, and long
guns are very tightly restricted. So anti-gun
demagoguery, while still popular, can't carry the
whole load.
Conversely, the government would not find it
acceptable to allow its subjects to possess any
type of gun (even a licensed, registered .22 rifle)
for home protection. Defensive gun ownership is
entirely illegal, and considered an insult to the
government, since it implies that the government
cannot keep the peace. Thus, in one recent
notorious case, an elderly man who had been
repeatedly burglarized, and had received no
meaningful assistance from the police, shot a pair
of career burglars who had broken into the man's
home. The man was sentenced to life in prison.
The British authorities warn the public incessantly
about the dangers of following the American path
on gun policy. But the Daily Telegraph (June 29,
2000) points out that "the main reason for a much
lower burglary rate in America is householders'
propensity to shoot intruders. They do so without
fear of being dragged before courts and jailed for
life."
So what's the government going to do to make
voters safer? One solution came from the Home
Office in April 1999 in the form of "Anti-Social
Behaviour Orders" ? special court orders
intended to deal with people who cannot be
proven to have committed a crime, but whom the
police want to restrict anyway. Behaviour Orders
can, among other things, prohibit a person from
visiting a particular street or premises, set a
curfew, or lead to a person's eviction from his
home.
Violation of a Behaviour Order can carry a prison
sentence of up to five years.
Prime Minister Tony Blair is now proposing that
the government be allowed to confine people
proactively, based on fears of their potential
dangerousness.
American anti-gun lobbyists have long argued that
if America followed Britain's lead in severely
restricting firearms possession and self-defense,
then American crime rates would eventually match
Britain's. The lobbyists have also argued that if
guns were restricted in America, civil liberties in
the U.S. would have the same degree of protection
that they have in Britain. The lobbyists are
absolutely right.
Fear in Britain
They have no guns ? so they have a lot of crime.
Dr. Paul Gallant practices optometry in Wesley Hills, NY. Dr.
Joanne Eisen practices dentistry in Old Bethpage, NY. Both are
Research Associates at the Independence Institute, where Dave
Kopel is Research Director.
The furor over the Philadelphia police encounter
with a would-be carjacker and cop-killer isn't the
only public-relations nightmare facing the city's
police department. Two thousand reported sex
crimes went "uninvestigated" by Philadelphia
police between 1995 and 1997 because of
"pressure to keep the department's crime numbers
low," reported ABC News on July 11. Earlier this
year, the department admitted "misreporting"
thousands of sexual assaults during the past decade
"to make the city appear safer than it was."
Actually, Philadelphia is not the only city to
underreport crime in recent years. The 1994
Clinton/Schumer crime bill has resulted in lots of
federal dollars for local police departments ? and
also lots of pressure to get crime statistics down
so that the federal government can announce the
success of its policy of federalizing crime control.
But when it comes to fudging crime statistics, even
the finest Philadelphia number-rearranger can't
compare to our British cousins.
During the nineteenth century, and most of the
twentieth, Britain enjoyed a well-deserved
reputation as an unusually safe and crime-free
nation, compared to the United States or
continental Europe. No longer.
To the great consternation of British authorities
concerned about tourism revenue, a June CBS
News report proclaimed Great Britain "one of the
most violent urban societies in the Western
world." Declared Dan Rather: "This summer,
thousands of Americans will travel to Britain
expecting a civilized island free from crime and
ugliness...[But now] the U.K. has a crime
problem....worse than ours."
A headline in the London Daily Telegraph back on
April 1, 1996, said it all: "Crime Figures a Sham,
Say Police." The story noted that "pressure to
convince the public that police were winning the
fight against crime had resulted in a long list of
ruses to 'massage' statistics," and "the recorded
crime level bore no resemblance to the actual
amount of crime being committed."
For example, where a series of homes was
burgled, they were regularly recorded as one
crime. If a burglar hit 15 or 20 flats, only one
crime was added to the statistics.
A brand-new report from the Inspectorate of
Constabulary charges Britain's 43 police
departments with systemic under-classification of
crime?for example, by recording burglary as
"vandalism." The report lays much of the blame on
the police's desire to avoid the extra paperwork
associated with more serious crimes.
Britain's justice officials have also kept crime
totals down by being careful about what to count.
American homicide data are based on arrests, but
British data are based on final dispositions.
Suppose that three men kill a woman during an
argument outside a bar. They are arrested for
murder, but because of problems with
identification (the main witness is dead), charges
are eventually dropped. In American crime
statistics, the event counts as a three-person
homicide, but in British statistics it counts as
nothing at all.
Another "common practice," according to one
retired Scotland Yard senior officer, is "falsifying
clear-up rates by gaining false confessions from
criminals already in prison." (Britain has far fewer
protections against abusive police interrogations
than does the United States.) As a result, thousands
of crimes in Great Britain have been "solved" by
bribing or coercing prisoners to confess to crimes
they never committed.
Explaining away the disparity between crime
reported by victims and the official figures became
so difficult that, in April 1998, the British Home
Office was forced to change its method of
reporting crime, and a somewhat more accurate
picture began to emerge.
This past January, official street-crime rates in
London were more than double the official rate
from the year before.
So what's a British politician to do when elections
coincide with an out-of control crime wave?
Calling for "reasonable" gun laws is no longer an
option. Handguns have been confiscated, and long
guns are very tightly restricted. So anti-gun
demagoguery, while still popular, can't carry the
whole load.
Conversely, the government would not find it
acceptable to allow its subjects to possess any
type of gun (even a licensed, registered .22 rifle)
for home protection. Defensive gun ownership is
entirely illegal, and considered an insult to the
government, since it implies that the government
cannot keep the peace. Thus, in one recent
notorious case, an elderly man who had been
repeatedly burglarized, and had received no
meaningful assistance from the police, shot a pair
of career burglars who had broken into the man's
home. The man was sentenced to life in prison.
The British authorities warn the public incessantly
about the dangers of following the American path
on gun policy. But the Daily Telegraph (June 29,
2000) points out that "the main reason for a much
lower burglary rate in America is householders'
propensity to shoot intruders. They do so without
fear of being dragged before courts and jailed for
life."
So what's the government going to do to make
voters safer? One solution came from the Home
Office in April 1999 in the form of "Anti-Social
Behaviour Orders" ? special court orders
intended to deal with people who cannot be
proven to have committed a crime, but whom the
police want to restrict anyway. Behaviour Orders
can, among other things, prohibit a person from
visiting a particular street or premises, set a
curfew, or lead to a person's eviction from his
home.
Violation of a Behaviour Order can carry a prison
sentence of up to five years.
Prime Minister Tony Blair is now proposing that
the government be allowed to confine people
proactively, based on fears of their potential
dangerousness.
American anti-gun lobbyists have long argued that
if America followed Britain's lead in severely
restricting firearms possession and self-defense,
then American crime rates would eventually match
Britain's. The lobbyists have also argued that if
guns were restricted in America, civil liberties in
the U.S. would have the same degree of protection
that they have in Britain. The lobbyists are
absolutely right.
