Please get your facts right.

Just loving the first comment on the Mail's website under the headline Brotherss who tortured get just five years

Please get your facts right.
They were not sentenced to "just FIVE years". They were given indeterminate sentences which means they can be incarcerated for their whole lives if necessary.
Yeah, but let's not let facts get in the way of an opportunity to have a good old rant about 'Broken Britain' and how our justice system is a 'joke' and we need the BNP to sort it out. You know Mail readers love all that stuff.

The perils of being a crime reporter in Russia

After the most recent attack on Sergei Kanev — attempted strangulation with a wire, in his apartment’s stairwell here — his editor visited him and delicately suggested that he take a six-month sabbatical from crime reporting, in America.

writes the New York Times

Under Putin as the report continues

the ranks of people willing to hold the powerful to account are thinning. Their work is increasingly marginalized, so that most Russians never learn what corruption or human rights abuses they have uncovered. And while most do not blame the government for the attacks themselves, they say failure to investigate and punish the crimes has set a permissive, and dangerous, tone.

Are the media adding to the knife crime frenzy?

An interesting piece over at comment is free by Sunny Hundal

I realise it's not very fashionable to say in our media environment, but can we please have some sense of perspective on this issue? For a start, as Angela Phillips pointed out this morning, the figures don't actually bear out the reality of a crisis. Secondly, the coverage and the tough words are much more likely to increase the problem. And lastly, I hate to say this, but there is a strong undertone of "What are we going do about the black boys?" to all this.

Interestingly he points out that knife crime is far more endemic in Scotland

According to statistics, there were 73 murders in the Strathclyde Police Force area, 40 of which involved knives. Knife crime levels in Scotland are 3.5 times higher than in England or Wales.

and yet

we don't hear any of that in our media. Is it because they're mostly white teenagers? Or is it because London editors are more concerned about what is happening around the corner than in Scotland? Probably a mixture of both.

Violent Britain?

Reading the papers this Sunday morning you would think that the country is disappearing below a wave of violent crime.

Many of the papers lead with a take on the subject,the Independent on Sunday with the news that

Knife violence in Britain is far worse than official statistics suggest, with almost 14,000 people taken to hospital for injuries caused by knives and other sharp weapons last year.

The Express with

THOUSANDS of knives are freely available on the internet for young thugs who are unable to buy them in shops.
A Sunday Express investigation last night ?discovered 15,793 deadly weapons openly for sale on auction site ebay.

The Observer tells us that

The growing fear of knife crime in Britain is forcing hospital trusts and local authorities to supply body armour to frontline workers, including A&E staff, hospital porters, teachers, benefits officers and traffic wardens.

The Sunday Mirror tells us that

A notorious crime gang has put out a contract on the heads of Ben Kinsella's killers.
Associates of the vicious Adams family have vowed to carry out revenge "hits" for the 16-year-old's bloody death.

The Telegraph tells us that Ben Kinsella

had written a letter to the Prime Minister as part of his English GCSE coursework, suggesting parenting classes, curfews and youth clubs as possible solutions. His appeal was found in his schoolbook by his family.

whilst reporting that

A teenager murdered in a street ambush had told his parents he was being targeted by a gang who had threatened him with violence.

And the News of the World on its front page says

THE 16-year-old stab victim who bled to death crying for his mum had a chilling gang secret.This shock picture of Shakilus Townsend brandishing a blade was yesterday posted on the internet by mob pals to ‘honour' the memory of their "fallen soldier

I have just been watching Sky news which is breaking news that a 20 year old was stabbed in Putney earlier this morning and is stable in hospital.The reviewers mad the point that this story wouldn't even have made the news if the other stories hadn't occurred this week.

It begs the question,is this overkill by the media.The politicians argue that violent crime is falling,yet the perception is that it isn't.Even Cherie Blair is saying that she is frightened for her children being on the streets.

So is the media simply reporting the facts or are they fueling the fire?

Another case of the Press passing judgement

Missing Shannon Matthews has been found safe and alive this morning and media coverage of the case has attracted a great deal of criticism.But another case of media treatment of victims has gone largely unnoticed

Fiona MacKeown,mother of 15 year old daughter was murdered in Goa has come in for a great amount of criticism in the press.

Madeleine Bunting writing in this morning's Guardian says

Open season has been declared on every part of her family life, her parenting style and even her appearance. She is blamed for abandoning her daughter in a resort while continuing her travels; accused of a recklessly indulgent style of parenting; and criticised for her mode of grieving. Almost every article refers to her hair - it is "lank", a "curtain" and, most unforgivably, grey.

The press has focused on her bohemian lifestyle as the reason why her daughter died such as death.

Here are some examples

The truth about 'Good Life' of murdered teenager Scarlett Keeling in the Mail yesterday

An empty milk bottle, tie-dye sheets pinned over the window instead of curtains, discarded black bin liners and a sleeping bag on the floor, and the contents spewing carelessly from a chest of drawers.
On top of them the remnants of a lost childhood - a plastic duck and young girl's jewellery box.
As these pictures show, this is the squalor in which Scarlett Keeling was being raised.
It is a million miles from the fantasy world of a wholesome family upbringing painted by her mother Fiona MacKeown in the past two weeks.

This morning the same paper reports that

The mother of murdered Scarlett Keeling spent a year in jail for cutting the throat of a man she met at a party, her son has revealed.

The Mirror under the headline Is Scarlett Keeling's mother really the guilty one?
reported

While other kids were at school, her brood would be spending six months in Goa, on India's west coast, where they could run free on sunlit beaches, feel the warm sand between their toes and eat fresh papaya all day long.
This, she explained, would be an education. It's hard to see what lessons are to be learned from Goa's Anjuna beach where hippies trip out on magic mushrooms and Nigerian drug gangs haggle for trade.

Conspiracy theories at the Sun.

I have already asked the question why the Mail has,more so than many papers hounded Derek Conway out of office.


Iain Martin over at Three Line Whip has a theory about the Sun and why it carried the Cameron crime story on its front page yesterday.By running the story on the front and relegating Mr Conway to page 2 and laying off the verbal attacks he suggests a possible solution

on the day the Conway row exploded, Tuesday, Business Secretary John Hutton also announced that the government would force Sky to sell its shares in ITV and take its holding below 7.5%. It could leave Sky, which shares an owner with the Sun, facing a hit of as much £250 million.
Did any anger from the high-ups filter down to the Sun? Was the paper on the look out for a way to annoy Gordon Brown and show how powerful it could be with all its weight thrown behind the Conservatives?

Mmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!

Feral Youths and Kebabs

If you want a discussion about crime in the Uk pick up the papers.Opinions ranging from it was different in my day to don't balme the kids via lets all blame the government

The Sun leads the way with its front page letter from a Dr Stuart Newton who describes the current situation as being the 2008 equivilent of Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

It tells its readers to

to heed the rallying call of former school head Dr Stuart Newton – and fight to take back our streets, towns and parks from the violent young thugs terrorising Britain.

urging them to

fill in the coupon on Page Five of today's Sun newspaper and send it to PM Gordon Brown,

Its leader saying

POLITICIANS wring their hands. Police chiefs complain their hands are tied.
The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith admits she would not feel safe walking through London late at night.
Yet the problem of violent youth crime just keeps growing with convictions and cautions up by more than a third in only three years.
For all the politicians’ empty promises it takes Sun reader and ex-headmaster Dr Stuart Newton to hit the nail on the head with his plea for action today.

The front page of the Mail focuses on the comments of the Home Sec under the headline

Skewered a reference to kebabs in Peckham

Jacqui Smith suffered a barrage of criticism yesterday after admitting she would not feel safe walking the streets after dark.
Opposition MPs said the Home Secretary had made an "admission of failure" to the millions of shift-workers who have no option but to brave the threat of violence.
Aides of Miss Smith compounded her gaffe with a desperate attempt to undo the damage by claiming she had recently popped out in the evening to "buy a kebab in Peckham".

Although according to the paper which tracks down the kebab shop owner who said

She came in during the early evening. We were a bit busy so I can't remember the exact time, but it was just turning

The papers Melanie Philips says

It will take more than weasel words to make the streets feel safe, Ms Smith

adding

for her to say, without any apology, embarrassment or shame, that London's streets are effectively no-go areas for women at night is to add the insult of insouciance to the injury of Britain's disorderly public spaces.

Tony Parsons writing in the Mirror says

There is much that can be done immediately - zero tolerance for carrying any weapon, ensuring that men with murder in their hearts are not wandering the streets on bail, and letting a life sentence for murder mean exactly that - you will rot in jail until the day you croak, not that you will be out by your 30th birthday

. and looks to the past

The youth of the past were no angels. But they were afraid of the law.
They were afraid of the courts, they were afraid of their fathers, they were afraid of their teachers, they were afraid of losing their jobs.
They would not have killed Garry Newlove, or even beaten him, out of pure naked self-interest. They had too much to lose.

Amongst the qualities there is a lot less coverage,Philip Johnson writing in the Telegraph asks Crime is falling? Tell that to our children

Jacqui Smith was right about one thing yesterday, when she said she would be too afraid to walk around Hackney in east London after midnight. That was the most honest and sensible statement from a Home Secretary about crime in recent years. She then went and spoiled it by claiming that crime had fallen, that people were safer than they have been for 10 or 20 years, and that once everyone was convinced of this "truth", we would praise New Labour for making us all so much more secure.

Bruce Anderson writing in the Independent takes a rather different approach,commenting on the rape of a girl in North London

One's first reaction is that hanging is too good for her attackers, who should be condemned to lifelong forced labour, plus a monthly flogging. But the five rapists are also youngsters. Can we be sure that they were all born to be monsters? Is it not more likely that some of them were turned into monsters by an upbringing designed to produce feral anthropoids, not human beings. It is probable that those young males never knew love and discipline, and that the vacuum was filled by the brutal bonding of a street gang. If infants are nurtured by wolves, they are unlikely to turn into Romulus and Remus.

adding that

The rapists must be held responsible for their crimes. But they cannot be blamed for their childhoods. Modern Britain did not only fail the girl. It failed the five youths. That crime did not have one victim; it had six. As the rapists will come to understand during their long years of captivity, the criminal usually ranks high in the list of his principal victims

Coverage of the Newlove verdict

The ending of the trial of those accused of killing Warrington Father Garry Newlove has attracted much press attention this morning,with most of the paper focusing on the comments of hos widow and the fact that one of those found guilty had just been released on police bail.

Interestingly though only a couple of paper this morning choose the theme for their leader columns

Shame of our society says the Mirror

The senseless murder of Gary Newlove was truly shocking.
That he had beaten cancer 15 years earlier only to be killed by three yobs adds to the feelings of outrage.
When a father cannot leave his house to speak to teenagers he suspects of vandalising his car, then something is terribly wrong with our society

The Sun says

POLICE catch criminals. Courts punish them.
That’s the bargain between citizen and state. We call it justice.
But justice means nothing when decent parents are murdered on their doorstep by drunken thugs.

adding that

a growing pattern of negligence and complacency is putting safety at risk

A return to sensible Tabloid analysis

After concentraying on Maddy for some time,the Mirror this morning devotes front pag space to a different issues that has been around across the year.

The piece by Tony Parsons asks "Why are our kids killing each other?"

The paper reports on a story which gets a lot of coverage

Rizwan Darber - the 51st youngster this year to die by the knife or gun - was stabbed to death by a gang of teenage muggers because he refused to hand over his mobile. And the more you read of Rizwan's tragic story - the sweet kid studying for his A Levels, his devastated mother and brother, the sheer senselessness of his dying before his life had really begun - the more his brutal murder makes you sick to your stomach.

And Parsons uses this to ask

Suddenly we find ourselves in living in a country where our children are murdering each other.
Murder for a cheap mobile phone. Murder to show how hard they are, how deserving of respect. Murder for drug money, for wounded pride. Murder for nothing at all.
The economy may be booming but lives - especially young lives - have never been so pitifully cheap.
Suddenly we find ourselves in a land that most of us struggle to recognise

Its second leader goes on to say

Our country needs a full, open and honest debate about crime.
The fatal mugging of London teenager Rizwan Darbar shows why we can no longer avoid the discussion.
We acknowledge there are no easy answers and often complex, deep-seated issues need to be addressed.
So let us start now because unless we find the right answers to the correct questions, we will never reclaim our streets.

With the media already at full frenzy over an anarchic and lawless Britian,this wasn't the week for details of the ruling on the killer of Philip Lawrence.

The press have gone to town on the ruling focusing initially on the comments of the headteachers widow,and then opening up the debate about the country's signing up to the European convention on human rights.

The Sun in its leader today perhaps reflecting the views of the silent majority when it says

BRITISH justice is kinder to a murdering Italian thug than it is to his victim’s widow.
Frances Lawrence has seen Learco Chindamo, who killed her husband Philip, win a Human Rights battle to stay in Britain.
She had to hear the bombshell news on her car radio because nobody took the trouble to tell her.

Of all the papers though it is only the Independent which asks whether there is a case for redemption on its front page

But should Learco Chindamo be given a second chance in British society?

Prison reports show that the 26-year-old Londoner has made excellent progress and in many ways has become a model example ofcustodial rehabilitation. Those who have worked with him during his sentence regard him as a model prisoner who is very unlikely to re-offend.
His solicitor, Nigel Leskin, said last night: "He is a genuinely reformed person and one of the best prisoners the prison has had. He knows he made a terrible mistake and regrets it very much."

Not wishing to sound like the preverbial lefty liberal,the media I believe needs to re examine some of its coverage.Indeed the reason cited by the boy's solicitor for the hearing to have been heard in private was that when on day release last year,he was persued by the media.

For those that remember,the stabbing of Philip Lawrence,a headteacher intervening in a case of bullying, was an awful crime and the courts at that time set the perameters for his sentance.

If the boy has been rehabilitated during his prison term,why should he be deported to a country of which he has little or no ties and doesnt speak the language?

I qusetin whether this is directed at European human rights rather than the individual concerned

Anarchy in the Uk

The newspapers have always been accused of exaggerating the levels of crime and violence in the country.The past week has seen increasing evidence of a lawlessness and the Tabloids this morning concentrate on the fear factor

No more so than the Mirror which releases a poll which claims that we are now too scared to leave our homes.

A disturbing 42 per cent of people are too afraid of yobs to leave home at night, a Mirror poll reveals today.
Half of those quizzed feel less safe than a decade ago. A third have called police about anti-social behaviour.
And 62 per cent believe parents are to blame for their children's loutishness.
Yob rule on our streets and estates is now so out of control Britain is a nation gripped by fear.
Despite a record number of police on patrol half of us feel less safe than a decade ago, an exclusive Mirror/GMTV poll reveals today.
An overwhelming 65 per cent of people believe that under-16s should not be allowed out unsupervised after dark.
And 62 per cent believe the most blame for youngsters' loutishness lies with parents.

Following up recent incidents the front page of the Sun takes it a stage further proclaiming "Anarchy in the Uk."

As figures revealed knife crime had DOUBLED in two years, a string of incidents left law-abiding citizens living in terror.
A mob BESIEGED a police station.
A man and a teenage boy were MURDERED in separate incidents and paramedics were ATTACKED as they tended a father and son.
In one county, 999 callers were told there were only THREE police on duty in a town of 22,000 people.
Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust and a serving cop, said: “Violent crime has reached epidemic proportions.

That latest report on knife crime is covered in many of the papers,the Telegraph amongst them which reports

The number of muggings involving knives soared from 25,500 in 2005 to 64,000 in the year up to April 2007, according to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) of King's College, London.
Last year an average of 175 knife-point robberies a day took place on the nation's streets - up from 110 in 2005/06 and 69 the year before, the CCJS disclosed.
Knives are now used in one in five muggings, twice the frequency of two years ago, the research says.

The front page of the Mail also jumps on the bandwagon with a story telling us that

Shocking figures today cast doubts on the effectiveness of police community support officers. They show that, on average, each one solves a crime every six years. And they hand out fines for anti-social behaviour, public disorder or motoring offences at a rate of one every four months ...

So are we in the midst of a new crime wave or is the press once again scaremongering the public?

Does the media exaggerate Crime?

Former Crime watch presenter Nick Ross certainly thinks so.Speaking on the today programme on Radio 4 yesterday he said

"The media have long been peddling a big lie about crime, either that or they have been astonishingly incompetent about persuading their listeners, readers and viewers of the truth because the truth is that crime has been declining for well over a decade. "

Events this week may show that he is right.In the first additions on Friday morning before the cash for honours story brokeboth the Telegraph and the Times were leading with one particular example from the annual British crime survey

Drink to blame as violence rises by 5pc reported the Telegraph

A Home Office report disclosed that offences of assault, criminal damage and harassment between 3am and 6am rose sharply in the 12 months after the reforms came in. The figures are a blow to ministers who had argued that staggered and later closing times would reduce crime levels by avoiding the traditional 11pm rush on to the streets, which often resulted in ugly clashes between drunken revellers and police.

The critics of Nick Ross say that he is being selective in using the figures but that critique could also be levelled at the newspapers.

This from the Guardian on the same day

Home Office criminologists portrayed Britain as becoming a "less violent nation" with half a million fewer violent crime victims than in 1995 - a fall of 45%. They insisted yesterday that the 5% rise in violent crime recorded by the BCS was "not statistically significant".
Their claims are supported by a fall in the murder rate to its lowest level for eight years with 755 homicides, and a 13% fall in gun crime according to the police. Death by dangerous driving however is becoming an increasing problem with a record 462 killed this way last year.

Whereas the Times was reporting

Violent crime and robberies rose last year, as did the risk of becoming a victim of crime, while the overall number of offences is slightly down, the Government said today.
Four out of 10 people thought crime had gone up in their local area, according to the annual British Crime Survey, based on interviews with more than 40,000 people.
Drink and drug-fuelled crime has also seen a rise, with over one million victims believing that the offenders were under the influence of alcohol. There were 462 offences of causing death by dangerous driving or while under the influence of drink or drugs.

The Middle Market papers have a long history of pulling out crome facts and sensationalising particular statistics,immigrants and migrants being targeting in particular.

The reports though of the annual crime survey served to show that you can make statistics reflect by and large what you want them to.