Not only has monitoring the real level of crime in the UK failed but the deterrence value of the law grows weaker by the day.
The main reason that a burglar has a one in five hundred chance of spending three months or more in prison is the “efforts” of the Crown Prosecution Service. I have often thought that if one were to burn all the graduates of the Ecole Normale de l’Administration, that the Gross National Product of France would rocket. In the case of the Crown Prosecution Service, its staff are too soggy to serve as fuel. However, the removal of that bunch of hopeless failed lawyers (think about it) from the gene pool would doubtless lead to a drop in crime.
The bungling over the prosecution of Paul Burrell last week is a case in point. Let’s not forget either that these are the people who prosecute shopkeepers for selling a pound of bananas to someone who asks for them and who decide that Tony Martin is a criminal.
You mean to say the British police actually bother to investigate burglaries? Or pretend to investigate them? The Dutch police have dropped the pretense, saying that they can’t be bothered.