Very interesting article! Here is my assessment of the information:

-The blame on violent crime is blamed on *alcohol*.
-The opportunity for crime is blamed on a waning police force.

Are they going to, then ban alcohol?

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Rising crime means calls for more police officers
A dramatic rise in violent crime has been
revealed in the government’s latest figures,
while overall crime has risen by nearly 4%.

Home Office figures for England and Wales
showed a total of 5.3 million offences reported
to the police in 1999-2000 compared to 5.1
million in the previous year.

Responding to the news, Home Secretary Jack
Straw stressed that Labour was determined to
be tough on crime.

He told the BBC: “We came into government
with a promise to be tough on crime and tough
on the causes of crime, this is not an empty
slogan at all.”

But the Conservatives strongly criticised the
government over the new figures, blaming
them on falling police numbers.

Alcohol and violence

Although acknowledging that there were
serious problems with the number of violent
crimes and robberies, Mr Straw said police
targeting of car crime and burglaries had seen
both drop.

Promising to bear down on crime caused by
drunken behaviour Mr Straw said: “There is a
really serious problem about alcohol and
violence.

“My generation, yes, used to go out and get
drunk from time to time but I think it has got
much worse.”

Saying the drunkenness
of young people was a
result of them having
“more money in their
pockets”, Mr Straw
added that they had a
“greater susceptibility
to get drunk”.

The National Association of Probation Officers,
has also highlighted the link between alcohol
and crime and said the “vast majority” of
domestic crime or offences carried out by
someone known to the victim are alcohol
related.

Regional variations

Turning to the fall in police numbers, Mr Straw
said he hoped to reverse their decline. He said
he was expecting some good news on police
funding from Chancellor Gordon Brown’s public
spending review due later on Tuesday.

Mr Straw also called on police forces around
the country to follow the example of those
forces where crime had actually fallen over the
last year, without the use of additional
resources.

Out of the 43 police areas, 18 forces had
experienced a drop in crime, while others had
widely-varying figures for the same crime.

For example, Manchester recorded 11,726
violent crimes, compared with just 2,918 for
Sheffield.

The figures also show a fall in the proportion of
crimes solved – down from 29% to 25%.

‘Seriously bad’

Responding for the Tories, shadow home
secretary Ann Widdecombe said: “Today’s
figures show that crime is spiralling out of
control with an appalling 190,000 more victims
last year than in the previous 12 months.
Things are getting worse, not better, under
Tony Blair.

“When they came to office crime was falling.
Their policies have caused this rise. Labour’s
law and order policy has failed,” she said.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman
Simon Hughes said the figures were “seriously
bad” and demanded that the government
increase police numbers, rather than just
restore cuts.

He also called on the chancellor’s spending
review to lay the foundations for more radical
strategies to tackle the link between drugs,
alcohol and crime.