Friday, July 20, 2007
LATENIGHT ECOMOMY
British crime survey extract from The Time 19th July 07
Impact of Licensing Reforms
A separate analysis of the impact the controversial licensing reforms have had on crime showed an increase in offences during night-time hours in the year after 24-hour drinking was introduced.
There were 940,522 violent crimes and cases of disorder and criminal damage committed from 6pm to 6am in the year after pubs and clubs were given permission to open later, compared with 933,701 in the previous year.
Overall the BCS showed that crime was stable in the year to March, although vandalism was up 10 per cent and violent crime rose by 5 per cent, although the Home Office said the rise was not statistically significant.
There were 101,370 robberies in recorded crime figures for England and Wales - a rise of 3 per cent - the highest level for three years.
On the day that Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, admitted that she had experimented with the cannabis when she was a student, figures showed that drugs offences were up 9 per cent, to 194,300 cases.
They included a 9 per cent rise in possession of cannabis to 130,000 incidents, which Home Office experts said was due to the police handing out more warnings to users following the drug's reclassification to class C.
Possession of other controlled drugs also rose, showing a 12 per cent rise to more than 36,600 cases. The total number of recorded crimes fell by 2 per cent to 5.4 million.
"One of the biggest challenges we face is that public perceptions of crime levels remain high," said Ms Smith.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]