You raise some interesting questions Kathryn.
Background Info:-
The ONS (Office of National Statistics), who also publish detailed data on the Environment, the Economy and on a wide range of other areas in the UK, can be relied upon as being genuine and authentic. They are an ‘Independent’ Government Department. An Independent Government Department in the UK is a Government Department who are ‘only’ answerable to Parliament (not to the Government). This ensures ‘independency’ of the Government Department from the Government, to guarantee that Governments cannot have influence over the running of the Government Department or massage official data published by it. All data gathered by the ONS is published to the ‘Public Domain’ for all to see; regardless to whether it’s embarrassing to the Government or not.
Where confusion can occur is ‘how’ a crime is logged by the police before they hand over the statistics to the ONS e.g. whether a particular police force records a theft of a handbag by someone holding a knife is logged as just robbery, a knife crime or a violent crime etc. (different police forces can record the same crime under different categories, and overtime change the way how crime is categorised).
As Home Secretary of the Conservative Government between 2010 and 2015, Theresa May significantly cut funding to the police force; and as Prime Minister from 2016 to 2019 she’s continued to oversee the cut in public spending on the police force. So consequently, over the past 9 years Theresa May has been responsible for cutting funding of the police by 25%.
Therefore, not surprising, according to the police; crime (which was on the decline in the UK in 2010) has started to rise again since Theresa May became Home Office Minister in 2010, and her subsequent cuts in public spending on the police force over the last 9 years.
However, because police-recorded crime is sensitive to changes in recording practices (which can skew statistical trends over time); an annual survey of 38,000 members of the public is conducted to record the public perception of crime in the UK based on their own personal experiences. According to this separate Crime Survey, based on people's experiences, crime in the UK continues to fall!
So when academics are analysing crime trends in the UK they balance the ‘Annual Peoples Crime Survey’ against the Police Official Records published on the ONS (and good luck to them); we Brits love making things difficult for ourselves. The ‘Annual Peoples Crime survey’ is generally considered a good measure of ‘trends over time’ in crime experienced by individuals because it’s not affected by changes in how crime is recorded.
One caveat is that although knife crime is on the increase, it should be seen in context. It's relatively unusual for a violent incident to involve a knife, and rarer still for someone to need hospital treatment because of knife crime. Most violence in the UK is caused by people hitting, kicking, shoving or slapping someone; often during a fight, and often when drunk e.g. outside nightclubs.
• Alcohol Culture: Fight Outside 'Kooky' Nightclub In Doncaster, UK: https://youtu.be/K1GTlgeeP6k
Getting back to your main point: While (statistically) crime rates in general may not appear to be any better in the UK than in the USA (and in some areas worse), one area that does stand out is that although there were 739 homicides in UK in 2018 (an increase of 14% from the previous year), it’s still insignificant when compared to the 17,284 Homicides in the USA in 2017.
As a direct comparison (taking difference of population size into account):-
• Recorded Violent Crime: In the UK is 1,955 per 100,000 population, and 394 per 100,000 in the USA. Therefore, ‘recorded’ violent crime in the UK is 5 times more prevalent than in the USA. A high proportion of violent crime in the UK being drunken youths fighting outside of nightclubs.
• While in contrast homicides: In the UK is 1.12 per 100,000 population, and 5.28 per 100,000 in the USA e.g. 5 times more prevalent in the USA than the UK.
Yes you are right: The reason we Brits put up with living in 1984 (the film) is that we ‘trust the reason for the surveillance; albeit there is disquiet about the misuse of powers by non-enforcement Agencies e.g. Local Government and Government Departments, for which the powers were not intended.
For my part, I’d much rather live in a Society where high levels of surveillance are the norm than live in a Society that to a Brit has a reputation of being very much ‘trigger happy’ (wild west). Although I do appreciate that it is only a perception of the USA that we hold on this side of the pond; and I’m sure that in reality, the USA isn’t entirely as we Brits perceive it!
From previous forums, it would seem that a lot of difference in attitudes between Brits and Americans comes down to our ‘Cultural Differences’.
