Crime Of The Century - A Chilling Look At Crime Statistics In The UK


Stitching Fabricating evidence. While the use of such tactics to secure convictions at court has largely been addressed by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, administrative procedures still offer the opportunity to obtain detections without sufficient evidence to secure a conviction. These procedures are examined and evidence presented which suggests ‘stitching’ is still prevalent in this arena.


Skewing Concentrating effort and resources on areas subject to performance indicators. It would appear that more difficult and resource intensive areas of police activity, such as the prevention and investigation of serious crime such as child abuse and sexual offences, have suffered as police leaders seek to hit the targets set for them. The spread of resources, a by-product of the move to local geographical policing, is also identified as a potential problem as officers are be re-deployed to more affluent neighbourhoods.


The extent of the problematic behaviour is quantified by examining the impact of known ‘incidents’ on the recorded crime and detection rates of the forces involved. The scale of the ‘pre and post incident’ shifts demonstrates the impact such perverse behaviour has on a force’s performance.


The extent and the speed of the changes in the performance profiles of forces known or suspected of ‘gaming’ suggests the behaviour is organisational in nature i.e. ‘top down’ as opposed to a deviant culture amongst the lower ranks. The exposures made by junior officers and the position adopted by the Police Federation also mitigates against such a convenient explanation, a point noted by earlier studies: “However, in true hierarchical fashion in keeping with the current refusal of senior figures in other executive corridors of power to accept responsibility when the ‘wheel comes off ’ or fiddling of the account is revealed, it is left to those at the bottom end to take the discipline and punishment.


On more than one occasion when a figure fiddling exercise was exposed or went wrong it was the firm conviction of those in the department that the buck stopped with the detective sergeant or occasionally the detective inspector, while beyond that rank ‘you were safe’. Young. M, 1991, An Inside Job, Policing and Police Culture in Britain.


Pursuing the theme of police accountability the role of those bodies entrusted with the governance and regulation of the police was examined. What emerged was a tendency to avoid public exposure when ‘gaming’ was uncovered thus denying the public the right to hold those in charge to account in accordance with democratic principles. In many ways such a regulatory approach reflects the approach taken by the Financial Services Authority prior to the banking collapse.


Certainly the extent and spread of ‘gaming’ described in the study does little to inspire confidence in the current system.


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