Here\u2019s one law the police may not have expected they would have to uphold: the law of unintended consequences. Politicians, on the other hand, ought to be better acquainted with the notion, and better prepared for it.<\/p>\n
What could be wrong \u2013 on the face of it \u2013 with the Government\u2019s scheme to put on the internet a map of every street in England and Wales along with the statistics on how much anti-social crime, mugging, violence and burglary goes on there? Quite a lot actually.<\/p>\n
Ministers\u2019 official line, delivered without apparent irony, is that it will give \u201cpower to the people\u201d. The scheme will be a keystone in the architecture of Big Society accountability. The new website will make us feel safer because \u2013 information being power \u2013 we will all be able to monitor local crime trends and do something about it.<\/p>\n
But how? It\u2019s \u201cabout fighting crime together,\u201d the Government says. The intention is not that local residents should erect roadblocks at the end of their street, Cairo vigilante style; rather we should all contact our local beat officer or attend a public meeting. In this way we will \u201cdrive the priorities\u201d of the elected police commissioners who will be the Government\u2019s next wheeze. Public meetings. That should drive fear into the hearts of local hoodlums.<\/p>\n
The Coalition\u2019s plan is worse than useless. It will cause additional problems. Fear of crime will almost certainly rise among the vulnerable or elderly; knowing the statistics for crime in the neighbourhood, without a proper understanding of the statistical context, is likely to prove that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. It is a recipe for impotence and fear.<\/p>\n
Areas will become stereotyped and stigmatised so that insurance premiums rise, house prices fall, and pizza takeaways refuse to deliver or taxi drivers to pick up. The maps will also tell burglars where the crime hot spots \u2013 and police patrol cars \u2013 are to be found, allowing them to go about their breaking-and-entering undisturbed. The distortion of police priorities that will follow, at a time when force budgets are being cut, make this political gimmick risible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here\u2019s one law the police may not have expected they would have to uphold: the law of unintended consequences. Politicians, on the other hand, ought to be better acquainted with the notion, and better prepared for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,37,38],"tags":[284,102],"class_list":["post-3433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coalition-britain","category-politics","category-society","tag-big-society","tag-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3433"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7998,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433\/revisions\/7998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}