A measure of crime

A well-conceived crime survey can be a reasonable check on the Executives attempts to present a rosy picture that is divorced from reality.

THE widespread panic caused by the July 7, 2005, terrorist attack on the London Underground took several months to subside. Not surprising because a community could not be expected to react in any other manner to the killing of more than 50 of its members during a few moments of madness. In contrast, however, the immediate public reaction to the recent aborted explosions in London and Glasgow was mild. It is possible that because the terrorists failed in their mission, and there was no loss of life, the impact of the ugly manifestation of what is believed to be crass fanaticism was marginal.

Walking around Hay Market and Trafalgar Square in central London on the evening following the unearthing of the terrorist plot, I was surprised to find that except for a police cordon and a few onlookers (mainly tourists) there was little to suggest that the place had been the target of a major assault just a few hours earlier.

We often admire the resilience of the average Mumbaikar following two gory attacks, once in 1993 and again in 2005. The fortitude displayed by the Londoner is no less commendable. My own feeling is that what bothers him more is street crime, which, in the case of London, is substantial but definitely not at the level that can cause major consternation.

While the world over there is an air of inevitability about terrorism especially from the way many major attacks have taken place since 9/11 and a feeling that nothing much can be done to prevent it, the citizen feels that traditional crime is something about which the government and the police in particular can do a lot. This state of mind is fostered by the media, which thrives on intensive, often sensational, reporting of crime. In doing so, the media believe that they are discharging a social duty cast upon them in an ambience where governments flourish by blacking out or distorting shocking occurrences.

It is an entirely different matter that this sense of obligation, incidentally, brings much-needed revenue to newspapers and television channels weighed down by intense competition and rising wage bills.

Crime, undoubtedly, makes good copy for the visual and print media, and the impression that London is slowly becoming a dangerous place to live in is fuelled by sensational reporting that the best of newspapers, including the revered Times, indulge in these days. As if the numerous morning papers are not enough, the growing number of eveningers distributed free at tube stations paint even the most routine of crimes in lurid detail.

This is why, alongside accounts of the conspiracy unearthed in connection with the London and Glasgow events, the findings of the British Crime Survey (BCS), released recently by the Home Office, have received extensive coverage in the countrys press. TV attention to crime has also been equally voluminous.

We in India know how discussion of crime is highly politicised. No State government is willing to accept that crime under its regime has gone up. On the contrary, an attempt is made to massage crime figures in order to circulate the phoney message that crime rate has dropped. Government crime statistics are based solely on what the police tell the Home Department in each State. These are then compiled in New Delhi in the form of Crime in India, an annual publication of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

What is refreshing in the United Kingdom and the United States is that the public do not have to depend purely on government releases on crime. There is an additional facility, in the shape of the crime survey, for measuring crime. I have been saying for years that the MHA should fund such a survey that would pit police statistics against public experience and perceptions.

The BCS is an innovation that was introduced in 1982. Initially, it was conducted at irregular intervals. Since 2001, it has become an annual exercise funded by the Home Office. The agency that undertakes this massive exercise is RB Social Research. It chooses random samples from postal addresses and interviews more than 40,000 persons each year. Last year, 49,000 were quizzed on their experience and for their opinion on how crime was being handled. A formula of weightages, which is too complicated for easy description, is assigned to each experience of crime related by the interviewee.

What is relevant is that the BCS figures offer a means to check whether the police statistics of complaints they have received, which are released almost simultaneously with the BCS figures, reflect at least partially the situation on the ground. This enables the government to review its policies and modify them suitably each year.

The method also affords the government a tool to satisfy itself whether people have the confidence to go to the police when victimised by crime and whether the police record public complaints faithfully. As readers will know, the gravest of charges against the Indian Police is that the majority of complaints, even when reported promptly to a police station, never see the light of day.

Citing BCS 2007 estimates, the Home Office has claimed that crime in England and Wales (Scotland is left out of the survey) has shown a 35 per cent dip since 1997. Interestingly, that was the year when Labour returned to power after nearly two decades of hibernation. The year saw the emergence of Tony Blair as Prime Minister, and whatever positive has happened on the crime front until late June this year is touted as the outcome of his tough and imaginative handling of crime. This infuriates the Conservatives, who pick many holes in the mechanics adopted by the BCS.

According to BCS 2007, the levels of violent crime in the country have remained more or less stable. A 10 per cent increase in vandalism is the only matter of concern. The tone of the police records based on complaints received is somewhat similar. They claim a 1 per cent fall in violence against the individual last year and a sharper 7 per cent drop in the case of sexual offences. Robberies alone showed a marginal 3 per cent increase.

The Conservatives, true to their role as the principal Opposition party, have stated that the Labour Partys claims of a stable crime situation were totally at variance with the popular perception of an increase in crimes. The slanging match goes on, much to the amusement of observers.

A recent report, however, tells us that the Conservative stand cannot be dismissed as a mere political gimmick. Professor Ken Paese, former acting head of the Home Office Research Group, and Professor Graham Farrell of Loughborough University, two respected experts in criminology, point to a fundamental flaw in the BCS methodology. Their focus is on respondents who had been subjected to repeated victimisation. According to the two professors, even where a victim had experienced crime more than five times in a particular year, the number brought on record by the BCS was restricted to five.

BCS administrators justify this cap of five per person on the grounds that anything beyond that number is an excessive phenomenon that is unusual, and a full weightage to such a rare occurrence could distort the overall crime picture.

The professors believe that this arbitrary arithmetic has had the ultimate effect of ignoring nearly three million crimes in the whole country.

Whatever be the merit or the lack of it in the argument, what should strike an Indian citizen is that his English counterpart has at least a less-than-perfect tool to hold his government accountable for containing crime. Its non-availability to an Indian analyst explains the lack of substance in debates in our legislature and other fora while discussing crime.

It is totally unsatisfactory that we have to be content with an occasional scoop that the media pick up to highlight crime realities. I do not for a moment suggest that a device like the BCS is much of an improvement over the NCRBs annual compilation. A well-conceived survey of the kind that has become established in England would definitely be a reasonable check on our Executives attempts to present a rosy picture that is divorced from the hard realities of crime on Indias streets.

It may be difficult to interest private foundations and persuade them to finance such a venture. Opinion surveys of the scale demanded here are expensive. The Union Home Ministry has to take the initiative and provide leadership to the well-deserved cause.

Perhaps, after a few years, it can invoke the assistance of the private sector to fund a nationwide survey. It is the incurable cynic who will question as to what we can gain from a survey like the BCS. In the long run, the benefits are too many to ignore. Free reporting of crime by the citizen-victim and less apathy on the part of the police in handling complaints are a positive fallout that I can readily think of.

At a time when Indias image as a strong democracy is growing, an independent public agency (even if funded by the government) on the lines of the Election Commission or the Information Commission, which would steer periodic surveys on crime and how to tackle it, will greatly enhance our standing as a nation that respects human rights.

After all, do I not, as a citizen, have the fundamental right to demand police service whenever I am victimised by crime?