When Guns Are Outlawed…….

….Outlaws use knives. The Times of London reports that there has been an astonishing - no, make that appalling - increase in the number of street crimes involving knives. Remember that Britain has some of the most strict gun laws in Western society.  Which appears to bother the thugs not in the least - they have simply switched to knives and are running amok.

THE full extent of Britain’s violent crime epidemic, which yesterday claimed the life of another teenager, is revealed in shocking new figures which show that the number of street robberies involving knives have more than doubled in two years.

Attacks in which a knife was used in a successful mugging have soared, from 25,500 in 2005 to 64,000 in the year to April 2007.

The figures mean that each day last year saw, on average, 175 robberies at knifepoint in England and Wales - up from 110 the year before and from 69 in 2004-5.

The study, by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) at King’s College London, is based on the government’s own statistics. It shows that knives are used in one in five muggings, twice the frequency reported two years ago.

The new figures will renew pressure on ministers to address the rising tide of violence and antisocial behaviour on Britain’s streets.

The surge in knife crime was highlighted yesterday when police announced a murder investigation after a 16-year-old boy died following a stabbing in Bolton.

In a separate attack, Northum-bria police charged a man after an incident on the Tyne Bridge in which a policeman was allegedly attacked with a knife.

The incidents followed the death last week of Evren Anil, a 23-year-old university graduate, who died after he was attacked by a knife-wielding youth for challenging his antisocial behaviour.

Anil was responding after the youth threw a half-eaten chocolate bar through the window of his sister’s car.

Did you catch the numbers? 25,500 knife crimes in all of 2005. 64,000 in 2007 - from January to April. A straight proportion says that if that pace continues, there will be close to 200,000 knife crimes by the end of the year.

64,000(/)4=x(/)12 = 192,000

There are about 61 million people in Britain. Calculate the rate per 100,000:

192,000(x)100,000(/)61,000,000 = ~315 knife crimes per 100,000 population

This data from the United States indicates that the robbery rate for 2005 (last year available) is about 2 per 1,000 or 200 per 100,000. (The statistics may not be directly comparable, but it was the closest I could find. Working with news story data can be a bit iffy.)

By all means, please check my math - because it sure looks like Britain has a real problem on its hands. Unless there is something really wrong about the report or unless I made a huge calculation error (doubtful, it was checked by someone I trust) there is a crime wave in Britain of enormous proportions.

UPDATE: Cernig from Newshoggers corrects me on the "year to April" wording in comments. Apparently that phrase means the 12 preceding months ending in April of the given year. (I had never seen that phrasing before, but it appears to be how Britain does it.) That changes the figures considerably. However, the rapid rise in knife crimes by more than 100% is still a very serious matter.

For the record, Cernig figures it as ~164 per 100,000, my calculation now gives ~105 per 100,000. I have no idea why they are different.

• 

  By Mwalimu Daudi, Saturday, 18 August , 2007 @ 9:04 pm

  Don’t forget the ammo shortage caused by the Iraq War. Britain should withdraw from Iraq and bring her troops home so that more ammo is available and criminals can go back to killing people with guns instead of knives.

  Hey, wait - that did not come out right! What I meant to say (before I was deliberately misquoted by myself) is that global warming is responsible for the increase.

• 

  By Cernig, Sunday, 19 August , 2007 @ 11:49 am

  Hi Gaius,

  In the UK, the phrase “the year to April 2007″ means the year from April 2006 to April 2007. That’s because the government always figures things in terms of taxation years, which run from April to April, so that statistics can more easily be related to budget figures.

  That gives a rate of 164 knife crimes per 100,000 based on the cited figures.

  The violent crime rate for the US as a whole in 2005 was 469 per 100,000. Firearms accounted for about 150 in every 100,000 of those crimes - roughly equivalent to the UK’s knife-crime rate. The UK firearms crime rate is 6.1 per 100,000.

  In 2005 there were 5.5 homicides for every 100,000 persons compared with a UK rate of around 1.4 per 100,000.

  Regards, C

Other Links to this Post

1. Maggie's Farm — Sunday, 19 August , 2007 @ 8:20 am