Monk Bretton incident

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7ac815ed915d71db8b26f4/rec-crime-1898-2002.xls

https://www.parliament.uk/contentassets/90b7f09a39a74dbcaa34acdfe7a210cb/olympicbritain.pdf#page=159

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8224/

A few to go at there. I’m sure a Google search will find you some literature on the 19th century, too. I don’t think there can be much doubt that crime has increased significantly since late 19th century.

You’re right. I apologise for my childishness.

 

Thanks.

There's a few things that make it extremely difficult to compare crime rates from such vastly different eras. Firstly, the population has nearly doubled since the late 1800s, so that is obviously important. Secondly, the recording of crime has changed massively over the years, as have definitions for the crimes. Moreover, forensics have obviously come a long way even in 40 years, so more people are likely to get caught.

Other than say murder (at a push), I wouldn't be confident enough to analyse data from these different eras because it just wouldn't be fair in my opinion.

 

Great argument….

 

Lad charged with murder has been released on Bail. Seriously????

 

That’s fair. I think there will obviously be some issues with the data. But for me the differences are that vast I’m confident the trend would remain even if adjusted for various bits and bobs. I remember reading a tonne of secondary literature as an undergrad (many moons back) on 19th century crime and the inflated contemporary sense of moral panic. The reality was that crime was much less of an issue than perceived, and I remember the general message being that Victorian Britain was statistically much safer than our own society today.

I would also add that I think the Tories and, in particular, Thatcher, played a huge part in eroding societal values and norms which, in my opinion, has contributed to crime. She made politics all about economics and relentlessly pushed the idea of individualism over family structures etc. I think this has stuck and for the worse. All politicians talk about is making you better off in your pocket, like that is all that matters and it will fix everything. In my opinion, it won’t.

 

There's always been crime represented in media, whether it be games, music, film, books, whatever. I don't see how the content has any credible link to crime rates. And I'd argue that films are probably less violent in general than they have been over previous decades.

 

If this were true then surely it'd be the generation above's fault for raising them poorly, no?

 

"There's no such thing as society."

 

Its very difficult to get an exact comparison of murder rates by year - despite it falling since about 2002/3 (despite the 50+ victims of the London Bombing) - the highest recorded murder rate was in 2002 when the 170+ victims of Harold Shipman were added to the total. These didn't all happen in that year but over the previous 30.

One theory for the fall over the last couple of decades is the focus on domestic violence. The largest group of murderers are husbands, partners or family members - 301 of the 696 murdered in 2021/2 fall into this category. Perhaps it could also be linked to the fall in the number of pubs and people drinking less.

This shows that the murder rate has been fairly constant since about 1970 - with most years around 9-12murders per million.

https://www.murdermap.co.uk/statistics/homicide-england-wales-statistics-historical/

 

Glad they've got the perpetrator banged up. Totally tragic & horrible. It happened not far from my 86 year old Aunt's house.

 

Yes plus anyone around them that let them think their behaviour is OK. Life is hard when you try and do things correctly like the majority of us do. It's easy to do what you want then bleat about the consequences. I've always found disciplining my kids emotionally quite hard as they were generally well behaved. However it's a job that needs doing to maintain standards. The easy way would have been to let them do what they want and deal with any fall out. Personal responsibility is diminishing as the public increasingly look for someone else to blame

 

I'm not so sure that they would.

 

Just to be clear, is this verbal discipline or hitting them?

 

Bet the parents of the generation before said "we had none of this Brady/Hindley or Sutcliffe business in our era...

 

This is very true people seem to always want to pass the book and blame something or someone else for things like this.

 

Yeah, it'll be down to us pensioners!

 

Not really sure this adds much to the discussion on crime statistics other than an anecdote but here goes anyway...

Back in the early 80s, a couple of years before the Miners' Strike my grandma was telling young me about how life growing up for her compared to my childhood. I got the full story - hand me down clothing that had been repaired so often it was more repair than original, no TV, no radio, certainly no computer games, just enough food to eat etc

She would go on to say that people and society was more trusting then, that people could go out and leave their doors unlocked, open even, with no fear that someone would enter and try to steal.

She didn't seem too appreciative of my suggestion that the reason no-one would enter the house as there was literally nothing to steal!

I guess my point is that to a degree crime, in particular theft, is motivated by desire and some element of jealousy. You're only going to steal the 55-inch TV if it's something you want or can sell on to someone else.

Violent crime is a bit different and I don't know the statistics. And I certainly don't know how well it was reported or recorded 100+ years ago. But it's definitely not a new thing. Jack the Ripper was plying his trade in Victorian Britain as were a handful of other serial killers. We've had Brady and Handley in the latter 20th century and Fred and Rose West in the early 21st. I imagine it would be much easier to make someone disappear without trace and pass them off as just having moved on in the past than it is now, which suggests there would be cases of murder or manslaughter that simply went unreported.

Not sure I've added much value to the debate but it was nice to remember my grandma for a while.

 

I agree that we have had about 60 years of this kind of media. But until recently, you’d struggle to see any of that until you were over 18.

When you were 10, were you able to virtually kill police or visit prostitutes for weeks and days on end? Many kids now do. I’m not saying that this is the only reason. I’m saying these distance people from their actions which can move into real life, especially for young impressionable minds. Many impressionable and less well off kids will also see the “gangster” rappers saying the way to earn quick money is to sell drugs and girls. People have no respect for others on the internet, often for comedy value. This again seep into society. There are lots of issues, but generally people being horrible to each other is the main cause.

 

Also, just think about the statistics around violence towards women from their husbands. Would it even have been classed as a crime then? Marital rape wasn’t illegal until the 90s!