"Economic" crime? December crime stats

I often go on about the high level of crime in Thamesfield ward, which is almost entirely due to the amount of crime that occurs in and off of Putney High Street.

Let me try to put how much more crime there is in Thamesfield compared to the rest of Putney into context. There are more theft and handling offences alone in Thamesfield than the entire amount of reported crime in East Putney, West Hill or West Putney wards.

That's why my campaign for town centre patrollers in the High Street are so important: when they were tested out in Clapham Junction and Tooting about four years ago they cut street crime by one third. And they'll allow the Thamesfield Safer Neighbourhood teams to give more attention to the residential parts of their patch. It's why I'm also campaigning against the £472 million the Conservatives want to cut from the Metropolitan Police, which cannot but mean reductions in front-line police locally.

So-called economic crimes like theft, or burglary - ie property crimes, are likely to rise during an economic slowdown. Politicians always struggle to talk sensibly about such crimes for fear that talking about the reasons why a tiny minority become more likely to thieve and steal in such a climate equals condoning or understanding such behaviour. Of course there is never justification to take someone else's property -period.

Fortunately there isn't that much sign of property crime increasing in Putney - yet. Burglary is somewhat down in five wards and slightly up in one. Thefts did pick up noticeably in December in four wards, dropped in two. Drug offences were down across the board and sex offences down in five out of six wards. There also seems to be a delay in reporting any crimes during the Christmas period in the figures - maybe these will feed through to the January figures due out next month.