Crime cuts deeper

The Courier-Mail, Page: 47. Saturday, 19 July 2008

More than 350 people are assaulted with knives every day in England and Wales, the latest crime figures have revealed.
Almost 130,000 attached involved knives last year - equivalent to one every four minutes - according to the annual British Crime Survey. This figure does not include the tens of thousands of assaults against under-16s.
But unlike the police records published on Wednesday, it does include crimes that are not reported to the authorities.
The police data revealed 22,000 serious knife assaults - including 231 attempted murders - were reported to the police last year.
There were also almost 14,000 reported robberies and more than 8000 woundings.
The data starkly illustrated how knife crime has spread beyond the major cities into the shires.
The British Crime Survey figure of 130,000 knife attacks, based on thousands of people interviewed across the UK, is substantially higher than the police’s figure. This is thought to be because many victims never report being threatened with a knife and even assaults needing hospital treatments go unrecorded.
The phenomenon of “hidden” knife crime has led senior doctors to call for new rules making it compulsory for hospitals to record knife injuries.
The figures have surfaced amid fears that a downturn in the economy could lead to significant increases in muggings and burglary.
Professor Paul Wiles, a senior Home Office statistician and scientific adviser, said the long-term trends in crime in recent years across much of the Western world was widely linked to economic stability and growth, but that trend could be reversed.
Police Minister Tony McNulty acknowledged the danger, saying: “I think it’s something we have to keep alive to.
“The economic backdrop is very important in all areas of policy. Dealing with crime is no exception.”
A third of all violent attacks involve victims assaulted by gangs of three or more attackers, latest figures show.
Figures show that a large majority of victims of violence are children or young adults.