21/08/2002 - Entry #25
I've become intrigued by the crime statistics of Britain. I've been looking up the average crime figures of a police district in England, and comparing it to those of my home and yours.
Average English Constabulary:
Population - 138,382
Households - 59,223
Violence against the person offences - 10.8 (per 1,000 people)
Sexual offences - 0.7 (per 1,000 people)
Robbery offences - 1.5 (per 1,000 people)
Burglary dwelling offences - 6.7 (per 1,000 people)
Theft of a motor vehicle offences - 5.0 (per 1,000 people)
Theft from a vehicle offences - 11.0 (per 1,000 people)
My home city of Leeds:
Population - 726,100
Households - 312,000
Violence against the person offences - 9.4
Sexual offences - 0.7
Robbery offences - 4.6
Burglary dwelling offences - 21.6
Theft of a motor vehicle offences - 13.2
Theft from a vehicle offences - 23.2
We're doing quite well in the violence and sexual offences stakes, but we really love a good car-jacking here in Leeds. Still, it could be worse. I could go to University in Middlesbrough! Ahhh fuck.
Middlesbrough:
Population - 143,900
Households - 59,000
Violence against the person offences - 10
Sexual offences - 1.9!
Robbery offences - 4.9
Burglary dwelling offences - 24!
Theft of a motor vehicle offences - 15.3
Theft from a vehicle offences - 32.7!!
Now, I mean, those figures probably aren't so incredibly bad. 1.9 sexual offences per 1,000 people is still fairly good odds, in a roundabout kind of way. If a horse was 500 to 1, you wouldn't really worry about it coming in first, you know? But when all the other horses are 1000 to 1, you've got to wonder if it does stand a chance after all. Three times the average number of thefts from vehicles is also quite worrying. Good job I don't drive, I suppose. Unfortunately I do live in a house. Ho hum.
Ed's constabulary of Trafford:
Population - 220,100
Households - 92,000
Violence against the person offences - 14.4
Sexual offences - 0.8
Robbery offences - 4.6
Burglary dwelling offences - 11.4
Theft of a motor vehicle offences - 9.5
Theft from a vehicle offences - 15.3
Ed's giving chase with a fairly high number of 'Violence against the person' offences. Actually, all of Ed's figures are above the national average. Even Middlesbrough had some that were slightly below.
Chiv's constabulary of Preston:
Population - 135,700
Households - 56,000
Violence against the person offences - 17.1
Sexual offences - 0.9
Robbery offences - 2.6
Burglary dwelling offences - 11.1
Theft of a motor vehicle offences - 6.3
Theft from a vehicle offences - 20
By this point I'm starting to wonder where the hell all these fictional constabularies with zero crime are, to make the national average so low. If even in Preston you have a 1 in 50 chance of having your car broken into, and a 1 in 60 chance of being physically assaulted, then where the hell are the safe places?! Turns out they're in Norwich and Stevenage, actually.
Strawberri's sleepy hometown of Stevenage:
Population - 80,000
Households - 33,000
Violence against the person offences - 6.5
Sexual offences - 0.6
Robbery offences - 0.9
Burglary dwelling offences - 3.7
Theft of a motor vehicle offences - 4.3
Theft from a vehicle offences - 8.7
It would seem that Stevenage is quite possibly the safest place in the entire world to live. Every single stat is quite a way below the average. I thought it was fairly interesting to note that the 'sexual offences' remains fairly constant in each area, middling around 0.7ish. Even Soham only has a 0.5. It would seem to back up my suspicions that sex crimes are simply unavoidable, as an undeterrable aspect of human society. A kind of "Where there are people, there are sex crimes" kind of thing. You know, 'if you build it they will cum'. (sorry).
Unsurprisingly enough, the one place that seems to totally overburden the national average is London. If anybody wants to give me the name of their constabulary, I'll let you know the figures from that area. I don't know London well enough to know which part is really which, so I'm using Westminster as an indicator of London as a whole. If that's not accurate, then like I say, tell me the name of your area and I'll put it up. Until then...
Westminster:
Population - 244,600
Households - 120,000
Violence against the person offences - 35.7!
Sexual offences - 3.2!
Robbery offences - 11.3
Burglary dwelling offences - 10.3
Theft of a motor vehicle offences - 5.6
Theft from a vehicle offences - 21
Shockingly high violence and sex offence figures, there. That's, what, 1 in every 33 people gets assaulted? Are they sure that's right? I suppose it includes drunken brawls outside clubs and so on, maybe. Who knows. Still, London definitely wins the Violence league and the sex crimes league. Oh, and robberies. Middlesbrough wins in the Burglary department, and, indeed, in the auto theft arena.
Anyway, I'm thinking of starting some kind of concept diary over at diaryland. I'm not sure WHY, since I do so badly at updating this site regularly, let alone if I had a diary too. But I'm still considering it. I'm not sure what the concept would be, unfortunately. When I say a concept diary, I just mean one that isn't a 'what I did today' type of thing. So.....not a diary, then. But you know what I mean. I contemplated a spoof diary, but that's been done a lot already, and I dunno if I have the time for it anyway. So at the moment I'm thinking about a kind of fictional dialogue diary, somewhat in the vein of xxiii. Mostly because I adore the entry:
"where did you go?"
"nowhere."
"i haven't seen you in a while..."
"well, it was a long trip."
's genius! I'm thinking something along those lines, but perhaps a bit more in-depth. Longer running dialogues, perhaps a poignancy to some of them, slightly more of an ongoing narrative (i.e. definite characters, even though they're never named and there's no prose), that kind of thing. As you can see, it's already been done by xxiii to a degree, and I know a lot of people quote conversations in their diaries already (such as Christine for example), but this would hopefully be a bit different to xxiii, and a slight mockery of the real conversations people put up (but not Christine....well maybe a little). But I think it would be sufficiently different to overcome any doubts I have.
That said, can anyone else think of anything else to do? Some other gimmick the diary could follow? If you can think of anything, please let me know. I don't know why I'm overstretching myself even further, considering I haven't written even half the reviews I've outlined, haven't even started the l337 section, and I've only just updated the news headlines and 'did you know' sections for the first time in about a month. But hey! Details schmetails!
So anyone got any ideas?
Oh, and I'm currently eating a very battered, very dejected Boost chocolate bar. Cheers, Ed. :)
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