http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=314832

Britain is now the crime capital of the West
By Sophie Goodchild Home Affairs Correspondent
14 July 2002

Britain is now the crime capital of the West

Rape juries to be told of previous convictions

England and Wales now top the Western world’s crime league, according to
United Nations research.

The UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute reveals that
people in England and Wales experience more crime per head than people
in the 17 other developed countries analysed in the survey.

The findings are expected to cause further embarrassment to the Prime
Minister, Tony Blair, who has pledged to have street crime under control
by September.

This week, the Home Office will publish its White Paper outlining
radical reform of the criminal justice system, in part to curb
spiralling street crime and to punish more offenders. Government sources
confirmed to the IoS that the reforms will also include empowering
judges to tell rape-trial jurors about a defendant’s previous convictions.

In the UN study, researchers found that nearly 55 crimes are committed
per 100 people in England and Wales compared with an average of 35 per
100 in other industrialised countries.

The UN study analysed Home Office crime statistics for England and Wales
and also carried out telephone interviews with victims of crime in the
17 countries surveyed, including the US, Japan, France and Spain.

England and Wales also have the worst record for “very serious”
offences, recording 18 such crimes for every 100 inhabitants, followed
by Australia with 16.

And “contact crime”, defined as robbery, sexual assault and assault with
force, was second highest in England and Wales – 3.6 per cent of those
surveyed. This compares with 1.9 per cent in the US.

News of the survey comes days after the Government published its
long-awaited national crime figures, which showed the first increase in
burglaries and thefts for 10 years. A record 108,178 street robberies
last year prompted the Metropolitan Police Federation to demand an extra
12,000 officers for London alone. The US, by contrast, has managed to
reduce its crime rates, despite its reputation for street robberies and
shootings.

Experts say this is the result of a committed policy of ploughing
resources into training prisoners, finding them jobs after release and
then monitoring them to ensure they do not reoffend.

The Government’s reforms are also expected to include similar schemes to
those in the US, where prison officers act as “mentors” to inmates both
inside prison and on release into the community.

However, the success of these schemes will depend on how much money the
Home Secretary receives from the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, in the
comprehensive spending review. Last week, Mr Blunkett is understood to
have told colleagues that “He [Mr Brown] doesn’t like me” after the pair
rowed over the Home Secretary’s share of the new spending budget.

But government sources say that the Prime Minister has now personally
intervened and managed to salvage a better deal for Mr Blunkett.

Harry Fletcher, the assistant general secretary of the National
Association of Probation Officers, said any attempt to curb crime by
reforming the criminal justice system would require substantial
resources. “The whole package is massively expensive,” he said.

Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin said: “This just shows why it is
ridiculously complacent for the Government to claim a respectable record
on crime. The fact is, we have a crime crisis in our inner cities and no
coherent programme from the Government to tackle it.”