I didn't talk about this recent report from the Home Office when it came out last week. Probably because it received almost no press coverage whatsoever, although there was an article in the Gruaniad.
As well as the decline in murders it's also interesting to note to note the more recent decline in injuries from firearms (p. 43). One of the arguments trotted out when declines in murder rates are pointed out is that more people are actually being attacked, but better healthcare means that a higher proportion survive. With regard to firearms, at least, this doesn't really seem to be the case.
There's no point in being panglossian about these things (especially when you look at the position of Scotland in the European 'league table' on page 12 of the report). Any murder is one too many and liberal backslapping is not going to cut much ice with a public by and large convinced violence is on the increase. Something which, of course, has some quite negative implications in terms of support for more punitive policies, less help for offenders etc.
I've said before that I don't think individual press stories have much of an effect on public opinion in this area. But I wonder about press frames or tropes, those long-term story arcs and ways of looking at the world which influence what gets covered and how. This short piece gives a good example I think. If something doesn't fit the dominant agenda it just doesn't get covered in same way. And I guess a decline in the murder rate falls into the same category - it doesn't fit with the way the world it thought (ought?) to be.
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correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the table "Table 1.08 Suspects convicted of homicide by type of homicide: England and Wales, 1971 to 2008/09" (p29) show quite clearly that in 1971 there were a total of 418 people indicted for homicide and this figure continues to rise reaching 885 in 2004/2005. The actual figure for 2008/2009 is 789 (if you read footnote 2). ER... a massive and continuing trend upwards.
ReplyDeleteHello anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThat's a bit apples and oranges though, isn't it. I'm talking about the murder rate (number of homicides per million population) - see table 1.01 in the report. You're talking about something quite different, the number of people charged with murder each year. It's quite possible for these numbers to move in opposite directions (and indeed it seems they were between 1997/8 and 2004/05).
More broadly though, no-one's denying there are more murders now than in the early 1970s - the rate is around double, I think. But my point is that the murder rate has been falling for 10 years, something which really doesn't chime with current political posturing about 'violent' 'broken' Britain and how things are always getting worse all the time.