When we were setting up the charity, a good many people said that in changing public attitudes toward witnesses and the walk-on-by society, one of the toughest obstacles we would face would be the hurdle raised by the British media, with its propensity to run alarmist stories about witnesses and to ignore good news.
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Beneath the headlines - Welcome drop in street violence matched by troubling rise in victims hospitalised and leap in those mugged by people they know.
The latest Home Office annual report on Crime in England & Wales brings the welcome news that stranger attacks have fallen by 8% from 852,000 to 783,000. The fall does not quite make up for the 11% rise in the previous year (07/08) from 766,000.
Strictly speaking, the situation should be described as stable rather than a fall as it is not statistically significant. (In the same way, the official line was that the extra 86,000 estimated attacks from 07/08 could not properly be described as an increase because that 11% rise was not statistically significant).
Attached is a table comparing the key data from 08/09 and 09/10 on street violence. This updates the information used in Evidence Lost (2nd ed) which was checked by the Home Office.
There are a few interesting observations to be made on these figures.
1. The data on stranger attacks is all heading the right way – down. There is additional good news in that year on year there has been a rise in the proportion of such attacks that are reported to the police - from 43% to 46%. However, that rise in reported attacks has been matched by a fall in the number of offences that are ‘cleared up’ or resolved by the police (from 47% to 44%). This no doubt reflects the fact that it is so much harder to effectively action reports of street violence while so many people walk-on-by and won’t engage with the criminal justice system by helping apprehend or identify the culprit. The net result is that once again it seems that only 20% of those people who attack complete strangers are caught and face any sanction.
2. The data on muggings throws up some surprising and discouraging developments. While the attached table estimates the proportion of muggings by strangers, the latest Home Office figures should be viewed in the round. First, they record a 6% rise in muggings from 375,000 to 398,000 (page 28, Table 2.01). Remarkably they indicate that this rise is due entirely to an increase in muggings by people the victims knew or knew of. Table 3.17 (page 75) estimates that
- 73% of muggings were by strangers (as against 82% in 08/09);
- 19% by people the victim knew by sight or sound (as against 13% in 08/09), and
- 8% by people the victim knew well (as against 5% in 08/09).
These figures suggest that in 08/09 victims knew or knew of their mugger on 67,500 occasions while last year this rose by 59% to 107,460. If there is a message from this it is that strangers are becoming less of a danger.
What is additionally troubling is that the numbers of muggings reported to the police year on year rose by 3% (from 41% to 44%) yet the number of such offences cleared up or resolved fell from 20% to 19%. Where more victims are able to name or identify their mugger to the police one would have expected more of these crimes to be resolved or cleared up by the police and yet, sadly, the figures do not suggest any such progress.
More troubling still is the fact that, last year muggings became more violent and the injuries more serious. Table 3.02 on page 62 shows that 19% of victims of muggings required medical attention (up from 11% in 08/09) and that twice as many needed an overnight stay in hospital (from 2% in 08/09 to 4%).