The Failure of Britain's Police - London and New York Compared

In January 2003 the Home Office claimed that the chance of being a victim of crime ‘remains historically low’. However, the staggering rise in the volume of crime, within living memory, has been so great that it is difficult to convey the enormous shift in the law-abidingness and ‘policeability’ of the English.

In December 2002 there were 282 robberies of personal property in Lambeth. This figure, for one borough for one month, exceeded all robberies, personal and business, for the whole of England and Wales in any year between the two world wars, with the exception of 1932 (342) and 1938 (287). In 1971 there were 17 reported crimes for every police officer. There are now 44.

Norman Dennis compares crime and policing in London, once thought of as a safe city, and New York, once regarded as dangerous. In the last ten years crime has risen in London and fallen dramatically in New York. New York has increased the number of its police and changed the manner of their deployment. Low-level crime is targeted in order to retake the streets for law-abiding citizens. Every commander is responsible for reducing crime in his precinct. In London, by contrast, the forces of law and order have lost control of the situation and spuriously justify the decriminalisation of many offences on the grounds that they are not really so bad.

‘Law breakers begin by robbing the law-abiding citizen of his tranquillity, property and bodily safety. They end by robbing him and his children of the benefits of a free society.’

Softcover, 60 pp.