The Politics of the Rising Crime Statistics of England and Wales, 1914-1960
This article argues that between 1914 and 1960, the criminal statistics of England and Wales reflected supply-side politics rather than the amount of crime in the « real » world. After the police went on strike in 1918 their wages were increased. This led to central and local pressure to cut police...
Guardado en:
| Publicado en: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/chs, |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lenguaje: | Anglais |
| Publicado: |
Crime, Histoire & Sociétés
2009
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| Acceso en línea: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sumario: | This article argues that between 1914 and 1960, the criminal statistics of England and Wales reflected supply-side politics rather than the amount of crime in the « real » world. After the police went on strike in 1918 their wages were increased. This led to central and local pressure to cut police numbers. Under the leadership of Sir Leonard Dunning, provincial police forces started to fight back by raising their crime statistics in order to move crime control up the political ladder. In 1930 the government accepted that crime figures would continue to rise and the Metropolitan Police, which was under Home Office control, quintupled its crime rate in three years to bring it into line with the provincial forces. The result was that in the post-Second World War period, crime control began to assume greater political salience than alternative programmes of social welfare. |
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