The prognosis is grim (some reshuffling of ‘grafs by me):
BRITAIN is facing the first increase in crime for more than a decade and a 25% jump in the prison population to 100,000, a leaked Downing Street report reveals.
The confidential and unusually frank report from Tony Blair’s strategy unit also attacks the police for failing to improve their performance despite big budget increases.
“There is still little chance that a crime will be detected and result in a caution or conviction,” it states.
[...]
- For the first time since the mid-1990s, when the crime rate began a steady fall, the number of offences is predicted to start rising again because of changing economic conditions.
- Prisoner numbers are rising beyond capacity and the Home Office budget has been frozen.
- Despite an annual funding increase of 5.5% in real terms since 2001, the police “have largely avoided radical reform . . . Police resource increases appear unrelated to changes in productivity”.
- Nine out of 10 crimes are either not reported or go unpunished.
- Half of all crimes in England Wales are committed by just 100,000 people.
[...]
To combat crime the strategy unit suggests adopting controversial measures used abroad, including: enforced heroin vaccinations, alcohol rationing, a ban on alcohol advertising, “chemical castration”, ID chip implants, the public shaming of offenders, the use of bounty hunters and enforced parenting classes.
Ah, Eutopia.