EUROPEAN CITIES are awash with knife-wielding rude boys who will stab you just to snatch your phone. America is full of gun-toting gangsters and rogue ICE agents. Such clichés are common on social media—each side of the Atlantic Ocean thinks the other is lawless.
What Happened
Reporting differences remain a big problem. Official figures for rape in England and Wales have doubled in the past ten years. But confidential surveys suggest cases have held steady: the increase appears to be due to more people telling the police and better crime reporting. Because the police have made it easier to report such crimes, similarly, Mr Ashby says recorded business robberies in London may have risen.
Mr Ashby says the statistics are the “least-worst attempt” to make data comparable. He and his colleagues developed them so that policymakers could ask “detailed questions” about trends between countries.
