Crime appears to be down - better stop sending criminals to jail!

Okay, I’m officially confused. “Acquisitive” crime – i.e. burglary and theft involving cars – plummets unexpectedly, just when the recession was supposed to send it soaring, and none of the thousands of experts who normally rush to judgment seems to have a clue as to (a) why this has happened, and (b) why this has happened now. 

Of course, we can discount a large segment of the supposed drop thanks to the rather obvious point that many crimes now go unreported because the public know just how stunningly useless the police are at catching perpetrators.

But, nevertheless, the trend is down when every bleeding heart liberal was assuring us that tens of thousands of starving proles would be forced to steal other people’s property to pay for the absolute necessities of life (booze, fags, drugs, betting, foreign holidays, mounds of fast food, electronic gadgets – including a 42” wall-mounted flat-screen TV – and, of course, a top-of-the-range Sky subscription). 

So, the next time a liberal comes up with this sort of knee-jerk guff, we crusty old conservatives won’t have to point to the odd failure of crime to rise during the 1930s’ recession, or its stubborn refusal to fall in 1950s’ America, when more people were getting richer, faster than at any other point in history. Now, we can simply suggest that left-wingers blink away their compassionate tears and check out the UK crime statistics released on 15th July, 2010. 

I was going to be facetious and suggest that the victims of Britain’s appalling state education system were now simply too stupid and lazy to get into cars or houses undetected. But that would be unfair. Obviously, cars and housesare a lot harder to get into these days, and the value of what can be carried away - £20 DVDs and suchlike – simply isn’t worth the risk.

Violent crime, however, is up. Perhaps this isn’t so surprising, as it’s often committed by young men whose testosterone has been agitated by cheap drink, or by members of minorities in whom the belief that any attempt to curb their natural “vibrancy” is a violation of their rights as permanent victims has been ruthlessly instilled by legions of air-headed do-gooders. As the concept of shame has been expunged from our national life, as state-school teachers increasingly tend to side with the “kidz” against “authority” (i.e. what teachers are supposed to represent), and as fewer and fewer children enjoy the benefits of a stable family background, or, indeed, any decent role-models, and as sentencing for violent street crimes has always been lamentably lax – well, it’s not surprising that it’s still on the increase.

The only thing we can say with any certainty is that the fall in crime has coincided with a sizeable increase in the prison population. There may, of course, be no causal connection at all between sticking more criminals in prison and keeping them in for longer, and a reduction in crime. That’s certainly the view of our Justice Minister, crypto-socialist fatso, Ken Clarke. Just a few days ago he was telling us crime was on the decrease because of our increased wealth. Doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that the overall crime figures have decreased during the last two years, while we’ve all been busy becoming poorer.

So now that we know that crime has fallen during a period when more criminals have landed up in  chokey (which actually sounds more appealing than those crappy hotels Lenny Henry is always advertising) , Ken wants to send less people to prison. Of course, he has offered no proof whatsoever that prison doesn’t work: all we’ve had are those tired old clichés about prison turning young tearaways into hardened gangsters, and the importance of “rehabilitation” (ah, isn’t that sweet!).  

Either Ken is taking an opportunity to wave two fingers at the members of his own party, who, on two separate occasions, so resoundingly rejected his generous offer to be their leader, or he’s once more demonstrating the willful, bone-headed stupidity that has made him such a vocal adherent of the European nightmare.

Prison may not work. But in the absence of any proof to the contrary, or even any vaguely convincing alternative theory, what sort of Conservative would be stupid enough to change course?

Of course, we already know the answer: the sort of Conservative who isn’t conservative.