Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Nottingham "crime capital" of England?
A report's just come out, produced by the "think tank" Reform which rates Nottingham as the crime hotspot of England. According to the Reform press release:
Who's right? Who knows. I do know that you wouldn't catch me wandering around St Anns, Meadows, Radford, or Basford, where shootings are not uncommon. Whether it's getting worse or better is probably relatively academic to the poor sods that live there - 20 shootings a year (figure plucked from my bonce for illustration) may be preferable to 30 or 40, but it still hardly makes for a peaceful unstressful existence. If gun and drugs crime is getting worse in Nottingham, it's not an altogether surprising result of the severe economic decline of the city since so many of its miners scabbed during the '84 strike, and who were rewarded some years later with the closure of their own pits. Since I've lived here, just a couple of years, the news seems to be forever reporting job losses in the area, the latest of which have included:
Yet there's plainly wealth in Nottingham, but concentrated in a few affluent areas such as Wollaton. There's a stark and obvious disparity in wealth between the well-off and the skint here, with wealthy and broke areas living cheek by jowl - St Ann's right next to Mapperley, for instance - which can only rub the noses of the brassic into their poverty and 'inspire' the more enterprising souls to move themselves up the wealth ladder by shifting high-profit drugs. Perhaps were there still decent-paid unionised jobs in the city crime would be far less of an issue, but sadly there aren't many of these outside the public sector. And for that, I'm afraid, the scabs of '84 have to bear much of the responsibility. It's the younger generation I feel for, who no longer have jobs in mining and satellite industries, but have to work in McJobs for peanuts, thanks to the selfish irresponsibility of their parents. The shame is that they don't realise this, as like most of the English working class these days they have the political consciousness of Big Brother contestants.
Urban crime rankings, Reform, 2006 (PDF)
Crime 'hotspot' study angers city. BBC Online, 23/5/06
City rejects crime capital label. BBC Online, 23/5/06
A new report today reveals huge variations in urban crime rates across the country with Nottingham, the highest crime urban area, recording four times the number of selected crimes per 1,000 population as the safest towns such as Southend and Poole. The report, Urban Crime Rankings, by the independent think tank Reform, uses new data obtained from police forces by Freedom of Information requests on seven offences: murder, rape, assault, burglary, robbery, vehicle crime and gun crime.This has not unnaturally provoked a furious reaction from Nottingham Cahrncil, which devoted a whole issue of its Notice Nottingham propaganda sheet (PDF version) to rubbishing its findings, and of course the local plods were none too happy either. The cahrncil says that the report is based on "sloppy research", but unlike other 'studies' rubbishing Nottingham, such as the C4 property programme 'study' which rated it as the worst or second worst (I can't remember which) place to live in the UK, the Reform report is based on solid, empirical evidence and the 'think tank' itself is widely respected. So this latest report has the potential to be far more damaging to Nottingham's rep than some anecdotal 'study' based on perception and opinion. Which I suspect is why the Cahrncil is reacting so strongly to it, although they want to watch out that they don't over-react as people might start to think that yea, verily, they do protest overmuch.
Who's right? Who knows. I do know that you wouldn't catch me wandering around St Anns, Meadows, Radford, or Basford, where shootings are not uncommon. Whether it's getting worse or better is probably relatively academic to the poor sods that live there - 20 shootings a year (figure plucked from my bonce for illustration) may be preferable to 30 or 40, but it still hardly makes for a peaceful unstressful existence. If gun and drugs crime is getting worse in Nottingham, it's not an altogether surprising result of the severe economic decline of the city since so many of its miners scabbed during the '84 strike, and who were rewarded some years later with the closure of their own pits. Since I've lived here, just a couple of years, the news seems to be forever reporting job losses in the area, the latest of which have included:
- Kodak closing their Annesley plant, losing 350 jobs
- Nottingham hospitals to shed 1200 posts
- The closure of Carlton TV's studios (now being 're-purposed' as the Nottm Uni "King's Meadow" campus, which is neither a meadow nor a campus) losing some 200 jobs
Yet there's plainly wealth in Nottingham, but concentrated in a few affluent areas such as Wollaton. There's a stark and obvious disparity in wealth between the well-off and the skint here, with wealthy and broke areas living cheek by jowl - St Ann's right next to Mapperley, for instance - which can only rub the noses of the brassic into their poverty and 'inspire' the more enterprising souls to move themselves up the wealth ladder by shifting high-profit drugs. Perhaps were there still decent-paid unionised jobs in the city crime would be far less of an issue, but sadly there aren't many of these outside the public sector. And for that, I'm afraid, the scabs of '84 have to bear much of the responsibility. It's the younger generation I feel for, who no longer have jobs in mining and satellite industries, but have to work in McJobs for peanuts, thanks to the selfish irresponsibility of their parents. The shame is that they don't realise this, as like most of the English working class these days they have the political consciousness of Big Brother contestants.
Urban crime rankings, Reform, 2006 (PDF)
Crime 'hotspot' study angers city. BBC Online, 23/5/06
City rejects crime capital label. BBC Online, 23/5/06
