This could be due to the high numbers of bedsits/flats crammed into our houses. As was pointed out at the LCSP by the Safer Neighbourhoods team, if someone gets into a house with 5 bedsits that would be recorded as 5 burglaries not one.
I must admit this shocked me. I can see that there is a recording issue but lots of other areas of London have similar profiles (in terms of bedsits etc) so it is still a bit worrying that where we live is so high up this list.
I'd really welcome Glyn's take on this - is there more we could do to reduce the burglary rate around here? I must admit it wasn't t something I worried about that much but maybe I'm just being blase ...
You're right Alison. I guess only if we knew how the wards ranked in terms of HMO saturation would we have a sense of how much of our rank is attributable to it. A Glynseye view would be very helpful.
There is definitiely something bogus here. Our ward includes Finsbury park, does it not? I always thought this meant we looked normal "crime wise" when in fact crime on the ladder itself is a lot lower than the London average (or so I was led to believe). Have they not just taken this table and used it wrong to create a stir. Surely the commercial figures should be included too?
Read this quote from the local paper: Councillor Nilgun Canver, Labour cabinet member for crime and community safety, said the high number of properties, such as bedsits, containing more than one household could help to explain the burglary rate.
"I suspect these figures may be partly related to an increase in the number of houses in multiple occupation in these wards," she said, "as each unit within a property is counted in the official burglary figures if that property is burgled."
Oh come now, we can blame them for illegal conversions but not the high burglary figures. I think the HMO argument is bogus anyway, a lot of the HMOs here are still one house. It's just that other areas of London have more commercial real estate over the same area and commercial burglaries were counted separately. Do the figures again from that table I quoted and we're not that bad.
I'm not blaming them for high burgulary rates, I'm amused that the councillor says with a perfectly straight face that it is because of the increasing HMOs in the wards knowing full well that the situation is virtually out of control because of poor enforcement and lack of political will to do anything about it.
Hmo thing, not entirely 'bogus'. One house, five bells = five burglaries. Often converted (bedsit) houses have poor/inadequate security, less control over who is coming or going into their house and lots of 'nickable' small items that are easily carried away. I think the police would agree that we are 'not that bad'. In fact I was hoping for their take on it. I did ask but they ain't biting on this one...
As an aside to this, interesting fact heard on radio. Houses which are burgled are often reburgled 28 days or so after the first time as criminals know that if people have insurance they will have claimed and replaced goods by then, but are unlikely to have done much to upgrade security.
Politicians soon learn to talk like that (straight face).
Does one housemate stealing from the other four in a separately let house count as four burglaries? Surely that's not even burglary.
I still think there's something fundamentally wrong with these figures but I think we should just shutup. If crime really is quite low here will we lose our policeman?
I`ll comment Monday afternoon Liz. We`re just about to go down to our part of Fin Park for re-assurance patrols after the Blackstock Road Op the other day