The assertion from government that “crime is down”, which means, it says, that its reforms are working, offers a misleading view of crime in England and Wales today. Crime fell by 43 per cent under Labour. That was because we built neighbourhood policing, putting 17,000 extra police officers and 16,000 PCSOs on the beat. Additionally, trends worldwide have shown decreasing levels of some crimes due to reasons which include changing demography and volume crime decreasing as cars were made more difficult to steal and houses to burgle.
Yet the government is using this to support its claims that its reforms to policing are working when the opposite is the case.
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