Dick Dasterdly

I doubt that the fact that so many E.Europeans and N.Africans left Spain when the recession really began to hit is simply a coincidence regarding the drop in crime figures.

bil

Can you imagine what would happen to the English crime figures if all the pikeys went back to Ireland?

HBG

A difficult one, Bil. The big difference would be if Jamaicans went back home, but the black crime is now being committed by their grandchildren who are as British as you and I.

Anyway, it's dangerous territory. Crime committing Pikeys are a tiny minority of the bigger picture; poverty causes crime, it always has done. Politicians stay clear of the subject, it's an admission of failure on their part.

bil

I agree that there is no easy answer. Shame really.

steviedeluxe

I'd agree, but only up to a point. You can be as poor as a church mouse, but if your parents are strict and you live in a village where everyone can see what you're up to... you probably won't turn to crime. In the city you have a lot more negative peer pressure, oportunity to commit crime etc. Add into the mix fewer opportunities to be gainfully employed in bad times (you try chopping off branches in a city park for firewood), and you have a recipe for wrong-doing.

HBG

If you live in a big city like London, it's dead easy to prove that poverty leads to crime, though not an experiment I would recommend.

Dress as you would for the office, take a briefcase, and walk a mile along the streets at midnight. If you start off at Westminster, you would probably make it, if you kept to the north of the river.

If you started off at Dalston Junction you would be relieved of your briefcase long before the end of your walk.

Hackney is the poorest borough in the land, Westminster the richest. It really is that simple.

rugbymatt

No.

licinius

It's not just burglary, theft that increase during times of recession. People are left frustrated & angry so violent crime will rise also. We are already seeing a resurgence of football hooliganism & this trend will continue to rise as more & more young men discover the channel for their anger.

bil

In times of financial hardship, this is said to give impetus to the politics of the right.

Dick Dasterdly

So pray tell me how that conclusion is arrived at, as I would have expected the reverse to be the case. ?

licinius

1920/30's Germany being a classic example

rugbymatt

Black people steal more than white people.


( Well since we are making unsubstantiated claims I might as well join in)

Unmutual

I believe that crime statistics in the US do demonstrate that.

Particularly so for more serious crime. Blacks are 13% of the population but commit 51.2% of the murders.....and it was calculated that a black person is 5.6 times more likely than a white person to be a murderer.

Source here!

rugbymatt

I don't live in America..... do you?

Unmutual

No....but I don't think the UK figures are that different.

Twelve per cent of London’s men are black. But 54 per cent of the street crimes committed by men in London, along with 46 per cent of the knife crimes and more than half of the gun crimes, are thought by the Metropolitan Police to have been committed by black men.

Source HERE!