The correspondent who claimed the police compiled murder statistics is wrong from a number of points. Homicide statistics are collated by the Home Office Research and Statistics Directorate and not the police. They collate the statistics on the basis of convictions and only those cases where a conviction is obtained for one of three crimes: murder, manslaughter or infanticide.
I can't be bothered searching throught the previous posts for the exact wording, but it's pretty obvious the police record the events, the Home Office adds the figures up and publishes them.
His claim that statistics are based only on convictions flies in the face of everything the Home Office reports say.
However, I've found this report which makes it clear he's wrong:
http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm50/5001/5001-00.htm"4.1 Homicide includes the offences of murder, manslaughter and infanticide. (Terms used in the chapter are explained in Appendix 2, paragraphs 16-20). At the time of writing, court proceedings were stillp ending in 44 per cent of the offences initially recorded as homicide in 1999/00. The outcome may result in some offences being reclassified when final data is available, for example where it is concluded that death was accidental. More complete figures from recent years are a better guide to the outcome of cases initially recorded as homicide."
"4.3 Table 4.2 shows how deaths initially recorded as homicides are eventually recorded. Of the 761 offences first recorded during 1999/00, 33 were no longer recorded as homicides by 11 September 2000 when recording closed down for the purpose of the analysis in this chapter. Court proceedings had resulted in findings of guilt in respect of 199 victims and proceedings were pending for a further 338. The suspects responsible for the deaths of 34 victims had committed suicide or died. No suspects had been identified in relation to 116 victims (including 18 cases where all suspects were acquitted)."
"4.4
Taking as a guide the more complete figures for the past six years (1993-1998/99), around 14 per cent of deaths initially recorded as homicides in 1999/00 may be reclassified. For the rest, about two thirds will result in conviction, and there will be no suspect for around 10 per cent. For 8 per cent, court proceedings will not be initiated, for example because the suspect died or committed suicide, or will be conclded without conviction or acquittal."
Appendix 2:
"18. Where an offence is initially recorded by the police as homicide, it remains so classified unless the police or the courts decide later that no offence of homicide took place."
Not that a particular person did or did not commit the act, but the act itself did not happen. ie self defence, accident etc.
Look at this chart:
http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm50/5001/5001-t4-2.htmNote that the figures used to compare with the US are the "initially recorded" ones, not those reclassified when new info becomes available.
Note also the figures for 1993, chosen bbecause it's the last year for which no court proceedings are pending.
675 homicides were initially recorded.
109 are currently no longer recorded as homicide. (ever seen the British figure given as 566 homicides in 1994? Neither have I)
566 still regarded as homicide.
According to Brundle (and Newsmax), that must mean 566 convictions, right?
In fact, there were 461 convictions for murder, manslaughter and infanticide, and 1 person was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
4 people died awaiting trial, 30 killed themselves, 9 suspects had their cases thrown out of court, 23 suspects were aquitted, and in the other 38 cases they haven't got any suspects, or not enough evidence to bring charges.
The 2001 figures can be found at
http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm53/5312/crimestats.pdfThey show 846 homicides in the UK in 2000/2001
Before you point to the huge increase, it was largely down to the deaths of 58 Chinese immigrants who suffocated in the back of a lorry as they were being smuggled through customs at Dover. The US figures for 2001 exclude the murders of approx 3000 people on September 11th.
By Oct 11th, 28 of those Homicides had been reclassified and removed from the figures, reducing the total to 818. 131 cases had resulted in guilty verdicts, cases were pending for another 498.
Now if Brundle was right, the official figures for England and Wales would be 131 homicides for 2000/2001. Ever seen it claimed England and Wales had 131 homicides in 2000/2001?
In other words, he's wrong on 2 counts.
1. The final homicide figures are not based on convictions, or even court proceedings, but on initial reccordings and reclassification as futher
evidence comes to light.
2. The final figures are rarely if ever used for comparisons anyway, because they take too long to come out. For a more recent year, only about 5% of cases have been reclassified. If the figures were really compiled as he claims, 199 homicides would have been recorded in England and Wales in 1999/2000, because by the end of 2000, that's how many cases had resulted in convictions.
To suggest that the police are responsible shows considerable ignorance of the subject. The British Police are fragmented into a number of forces that act more or less independently. To compile statistics in the manner suggested would allow even more bias to creep in; i.e. different forces would approach the collection and collation differently. This is one of the reasons for the Home Office RSD; the independent collation and collection of crime statistics.
I thought we'd already established that that used to happen, with lots of crimes going unrecorded. That's why there are so many guidelines for exactly what circumstances crimes have to be recorded, and how they should be classified.
Certainly crime figures are "collated" and "collected" centrally, but the recording is done by the individual police forces.
Mind you, I'm only basing this on the reports from the Home Office, HM Inspector of Constabulary etc, whereas he has a Japanese report
In addition to the above example in the UK there is an offence of causing death through dangerous driving. In other countries this would be classed as homicide but not in the UK.
I thought at first he was simply wrong, now it seems he's been deliberately misleading.
The FBI figures for the US specifically state "non-negligent homicide". ie, deaths caused by negligence are not included. Looking at the FBI breakdown of homicides, cars are not listed.
Homicide by negligence would pretty much cover causing death by dangerous driving, so it's excluded from the US figures too.
Just to illustrate the point, about 10% of all fatal accidents in the UK are recorded as death by dangerous driving.
The US has around 30,000 people killed a year in traffic accidents. If the same 10% figure is used, that would be 3000 people listed as killed by cars. In fact, the FBI show just over 1,200 people killed by "other weapons"
and unkown weapons.
There's one point he has missed out: UK figures include "involuntary manslaughter", which is similar (not the same) as "negligent manslaghter", which the US figures
exclude.
