zlacker

>>robthe+(OP)
> The focus of policing is also shifting. As street crime continues to fall, more attention is directed toward protest, dissent, and the perceived risk of unrest.

Does street crime in fact continue to fall? I keep hearing about bicycles getting stolen, or how in London, mobile phones get snatched. It was also common to hear how police fails to prosecute various kinds of crime (usually mentioned in contrast to how they do prosecute noncrime crimes such as 'hate speech').

Here, for comparison, is a paragraph from an essay by Konstantin Kisin:

> A month earlier, I was walking through a posh part of London when I saw a young man in a balaclava snatch a bag from a tourist. When I told people about what I saw at various meetings, most people were surprised that I was surprised. Phone thefts, muggings and all kinds of petty crime are now considered normal and routine.

Which story is correct?

[0] -https://www.konstantinkisin.com/p/theres-good-news-for-brita...

>>azangr+Hf
Anecdote is not data. It is both true that the police absolutely suck at handling petty crime, and the Met have a fairly terrible reputation; and that more serious violent crime is much, much less of a problem in London than it used to be (and less than US cities, of course).

>>pjc50+ni
Sure; but the article's premise is that street crime is falling (and as a result, the police, which, presumably, has more free time on their hands, can focus on other things). Assuming petty crime is street crime, and seeing that you agree that the police suck at it, is the article's premise correct?

>>azangr+nk
Yes, it’s correct. Violent crime in London and the UK more generally has been on a long term downward trend. This is not incompatible with there being spikes in some specific categories of crime. But it’s consistent with the trends for homicide, for which the statistics are pretty hard to dispute, and where London has fewer per capita than Berlin, Brussels and Paris (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jan/12/london-homic...).

You’re posting an article by someone with eccentric views on a lot of topics and an anti-multiculturalist agenda to advance. (For example, they believe that Rishi Sunak is not English.)

>>foldr+3n
Stats can almost always be disputed unfortunately.

One reason homicides are down is because hospitals have got better at keeping stabbing victims alive. Stripped of context it looks like a win. Put in context the question becomes, why are there so many stabbing victims? Gang crime, etc.

>>mike_h+RC3
Hospital admissions for knife injuries are also down, so it's not that (see e.g. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04...)

Also, hospitals have got better at treating knife injuries in lots of places, not just London. This would not explain why London has a low homicide rate per capita compared to lots of other cities.