Serious crime is growing as resources are focused on community crime

Home Office head civil servant, Sir David Normington, has said that levels of the most violent crimes such as murder, serious assaults and rape are higher than they were in 1997. The reason, he says, is the greater focus of resources on less serious crime.

Sir David’s 101-page document was sent to new Home Office Ministers appointed in Gordon Brown’s reshuffle last month.  It makes the claim that because police forces have been given incentives to concentrate on less serious offences in order to improve crime figures, they are less able to tackle the more violent incidents.

In his document, which has been seen by the Daily Mail Sir David writes: ‘In view of the fact that more serious violence has not reduced in the way that we would have wanted in recent years, and that these offences cause the most harm to individual victims and to society as a whole, our long-term strategy on violence focuses on seriousness. This includes homicides, serious wounding and serious sexual offences such as rape. Recorded crime statistics do indicate that despite recent falls, the levels of the most serious violence are higher than they were ten years ago.’

Read the entire article from the Daily Mail here