World Black News

Recording crime

Steve Pierson from The Standard really is a disgusting person at times. And I know he won't mind me saying that he is a disgusting person at times as he called David Farrar disgusting for daring to assess crime by looking at violent crime rather than overall crime rate, adding "he’s hardly one to fret about rape when he’s good mates with a pornographer".

The Crimes figures are out and Pierson says crime is down because poverty and the conditions that breed crime have been reduced.

How does he know that? Well, he doesn't, actually.

He said recorded violent crime is up be cause more people are reporting violent crime - but he didn't say that non violent reported crime is going down because fewer are bothering to report rising crime. No, he said it was down because there was less of it recorded, therefore he concludes that there is less of it happening. How does he know that?

He doesn't. How does he know whether some people report crimes without police recording it?

He doesn't.

Anyway to take that to its logical conclusion, hardly anyone is smacking their kids this year, because few have been reported for doing so. But it's a crime.

Then he says this gem:

Recorded property damage offences have climbed in the last three years..... and these rises are attributed (not by me, by the Police) to higher reporting

Well, of course there will be higher recorded crime if police record more reporting. But the deputy police commissioner said on ZB that according to him only 30% of actual crime is reported.

Pierson must have missed that. He also appeared to miss that recorded violent crime has gone up 47% since 1999. But before you state that is to do with a population increase the recorded violent crime rate has gone up 30.2 percent, with nearly a quarter of the increase in the past year alone.