Despite an overall fall in recorded crime, Home Office figures revealed poorer detection rates for every category of offence.

Only 1.2million of the 4.3million cases handled by the police were cleared up.

And the picture could become even worse, with experts warning that up to 60,000 police staff will be axed because of budget cuts.

The biggest decreases were recorded in fraud and forgery, violence, sex crimes and some kinds of theft.

For burglary, the detection rate fell below 13 per cent – the equivalent of one in every eight offences.

This happened despite sharp falls in both police recorded crime and offences documented in the British Crime Survey – a study of 40,000 homes which includes incidents not reported to the authorities.

In 2009-10, the number of BCS crimes fell to 9.6million. This is nine per cent below the previous year, and the lowest level since records began in 1981.

Officials said it had dispelled fears of the recession-fuelled crimewave predicted by ex-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in a notorious leaked memo.

The number of crimes recorded by police forces across England and Wales fell by 8 per cent, to 4.3million.

Yet the overall detection rate fell to 27.8 per cent, compared with 28.4 per cent in the previous year.

Almost all drug offences – 94 per cent – are detected, mainly because it is relatively straightforward to clear up a case of cannabis possession, the most common crime.

If drug offences are stripped out of the overall detection rate, the number of crimes solved falls to 24 per cent. Officers blame the figure on excessive bureaucracy and paperwork.

Police welcomed the falls in crime. Downing Street said the figures were ‘clearly down’, but that they were ’still too high’.

Sexual offences recorded by the police in 2009-10 totalled 54,509 – a 6 per cent increase on the previous year. But officials said police had been taking steps to enhance the recording of serious sex attacks.

Sharp rises in BCS woundings, robberies and muggings were dismissed as ‘not being significant’ because they were based on a small number of victim interviews.

It came as a report by an ex-chief constable and finance expert warned funding cuts could lead to the loss of up to 60,000 police officers and staff by 2015. Tim Brain, ex-head of Gloucestershire Police, said the figure represents the worst-case scenario after the Treasury told departments to prepare for cuts of 40 per cent.

Dr Brain, now Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Cardiff University, said that if the cuts were 25 per cent, the job losses would be between 11,500 and 17,000.

He warned: ‘This will mean fewer personnel for patrol, response and investigation duties.’

Dr Brain, who produced the report for Police Review magazine, said he expects the bulk of cuts to come through nonreplacement of police officers who retire and redundancies among civilian staff. Police cannot be made redundant.

Home Office chief statistician David Blunt said that, under the BCS measure, there were 6.5million fewer victims of crime in 2009/10 than in 1995.

He said the property crime results, with domestic burglaries down by 9 per cent and vehicle crime down by 17 per cent , were ‘ surprising’ . Improved security measures, including alarms and better locks as well as vehicle immobilisers are responsible for the falls, officials believe.

He said the trend of falling property crime has been seen in other developed countries.

Home Secretary Theresa May warned the figures offer only a ‘partial picture’, with anti-social behaviour and even murder excluded from the British Crime Survey.

She described the projected cuts in police numbers as ‘entirely speculative’.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1294902/Police-failing-clear-3-4-crimes-despite-fall-offending.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0u7SRNEKi

The unexpected fall in the crime rate in the past year despite the deepest recession in the postwar era may be because crime is what economists could call an “old lagging indicator”.

As the justice secretary and former chancellor, Ken Clarke, suggested earlier this week, no one can prove cause and effect but he correctly pointed out that the fall in crime rates since 1995 had mainly been during periods of economic growth with strong employment levels and rising living standards.

Home Office criminologists were surprised that the predicted rise in property crime – mainly stealing from cars and burglaries – has not materialised since the onset of the recession.

They suggested that this could be because home and vehicle security is much better than during the previous recession of the early 1990s. All new cars have immobilisers and homes without basic window locks and security alarms are six times more likely to be burgled.

There may be some truth in this improving security argument but more powerful is likely to be the delayed rise in the unemployment rate. It is in this sense that crime is a “lagging” indicator that tends to follow a rise in joblessness.

As the public spending crunch leads to predictions of an extra million jobs disappearing in the next four years, it will be a miracle if Tory ministers can go into the next election able to boast about a fall in crime during their period in office.

Against this background, record prison numbers, record numbers of police officers, greater use of CCTV, a global fall in crime in developed countries and even a decline in the real value of many household items are all alleged to be behind the long-term fall in crime in England and Wales.

The Home Office noted them all but refused to commit itself to a single definitive explanation, describing them instead as “competing hypotheses”. One of the “more speculative alternatives” cited is the idea that car crime is a “debut offence” for offenders and the improved security has put off many a potential career criminal.

But it is the question of a link between the record prison population of 85,000 and the fall in the crime rate that is one of the most politically charged questions. The massive US jail population is said by some to be the reason crime has been falling there since 1988, while Canada has had a falling prison population and a falling crime rate.

Classic British criminology says there is an “incarceration effect” but it is small. It takes a rise of 25% in the prison population to cut the crime rate by 1% or 2%. On this basis it is likely that the 100% rise in prison numbers since 1992 is probably responsible for about 5% to 6% of the 50% fall in crime since the 1990s.

A Conservative activist in Peterborough has been arrested after alleged incidents of postal voting fraud.

The man, who is believed to be a low-ranking member of the Conservative branch in Peterborough, was arrested and has been released on police bail.

Cambridgeshire Police said it was investigating a number of alleged fraudulent postal vote applications.

Police said the inquiry concerned about 150 applications to vote in the local election.

‘On-going investigation’

A police spokesman said: “Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire Constabulary are working closely to reduce the risk of election fraud being committed and ensure voters have confidence in the electoral system.”

The Conservative Party said the man had been suspended.

Chairman of the Conservatives in Peterborough Matthew Dalton: “We take allegations like this very seriously and as a consequence we have suspended the membership of the gentleman in question until the police investigation has been finalised.”

A Peterborough City Council spokeswoman said: “We are aware that Peterborough police has made an arrest in connection with allegations of election fraud.

“We have been working closely with the police in the run-up to the elections to minimise the risks of election fraud and ensure people in Peterborough are able to use their vote freely without fear or intimidation.

“However, as there is an ongoing police investigation we cannot comment further at this stage.”

 
Iran’s nuclear facilities may be deeply-buried in a “maze of tunnels” — making them hard to find and even harder to destroy. But the Pentagon is working on some new technological tricks for exactly this kind of mission.

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, apparently takes a personal and close interest in tunnels — he’s a founder member of the Iranian Tunneling Association. Many of those facilities were built as underground shelters in the aftermath of the 1987 “War of the Cities,” when Iraq and Iran exchanged bombardments of Scud missiles.

There are hundreds of miles of such tunnels, created by giant boring machines. The underground locations provide defense and concealment — there is no telling what is a nuclear facility and what is an empty storage space. And, even if the entrance is visible, the extent and layout are unknown, making targeting difficult. Even if the site is attacked, the thickness of mountain rock makes them invulnerable to ordinary bombing.

That’s why the U.S. Air Force is rushing the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (pictured) into production. The MOP can punch through 60 feet of concrete, but this is the very bluntest of instruments for the job. There is more subtle technology to seek out and destroy such facilities.

Pentagon mad science division Darpa has an array of research projects devoted to Underground Facility Detection & Characterization. According to the program’s website, the agency’s Strategic Technologies Office is:

investing in sensor technologies that find, characterize and identify facility function, pace of activity, and activities in conjunction with their pre- and post-attack status. STO is also investigating non-nuclear earth-penetrating systems for the defeat of hard and deeply buried targets.

Seeing through solid rock might sound like a tall order, but Darpa thrives on challenge. One project is called Airborne Tomography using Active Electromagnetics, which builds on technology originally developed by the geophysical exploration industry. The ground is illuminated with electromagnetic energy — typically extremely low frequency — and the distortions on the return show the presence of underground facilities and tunnels. Some years ago, military-backed scientists at Alaska’s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) were able to map out tunnels at depths of a hundred feet or greater. Papadopoulos, for example, says he wants to do another round of subterranean surveillance experiments. “Personally, I believe it can reach 1,000 kilometers. It [currently] can’t reach Iran, if that’s your question,” one of those researchers, Dennis Papadopoulos told Danger Room. “But if I put HAARP on a ship, or on an oil platform, who knows?”

Gravity Anomaly for Tunnel Exposure is even more sophisticated, using nothing more than variations in the local gravitational field caused by underground spaces. Extremely sensitive gravity gradiometers measure the difference in pull to map out underground voids. Darpa has already reached the stage of integrating the gravity gradiometer and signal processing payloads and mounting them in an unmanned aircraft, and have been “verifying performance in relevant geologic environments.”

Darpa is not neglecting the traditional methods of surveying underground structures, and there is a parallel Seismic and Acoustic Vibration Imaging effort. This might use untended ground sensors dropped from aircraft, or it might be something more advanced — Darpa’s website describes a mobile system using “an integrated, laser vibrometry system to detect seismic wave anomalies.” This might be another airborne sensor, though it might still need to drop something to produce shockwaves to create the seismic and acoustic vibration to be detected.

Darpa clearly believe that it is possible to locate and “characterize” underground facilities — this can mean everything from looking at what sort of vehicles come and go, to monitoring communications traffic or atmospheric sampling for traces of tell-tale nuclear material. It is hardly a surprise that Iran has complained of U.S. drone intrusions in recent years. Some observers suspect that the Air Force’s newest stealth spy drone in Afghanistan, the RQ-170 “Beast of Kandahar” may be sneaking over the border.

If detected, can such targets be attacked? The MOP may be capable of smashing through a lot of rock, but there are smarter approaches. The U.S. Air Force has developed skip-bombing techniques with bunker busters so that they arrive horizontally and can be aimed precisely at entrance doors. They may not destroy the entire facility, but if all the entrances are wrecked, then nothing can go in or out.

Thermobaric bombs like the BLU-118 “cave buster” have been specifically designed for attacking tunnel systems; the shockwave will travel far underground, going around corners and bends that would degrade normal blast waves. One test showed that it could kill human targets even when the blast had traveled through 1,100 feet of tunnels.

There are also more exotic options, like the Rocket Balls (or more correctly, “kinetic fireball incendiaries”) developed for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. A warhead would release a large number of these rubberized balls of rocket fuel; once ignited they bounce around at high speed, spreading out by going through doorways and other openings and raising the surrounding temperature to over a thousand degrees within seconds.

Attacking the Iranian nuclear program would be a massive undertaking, though but not necessarily impossible. However, it would certainly appear that the United States is the only nation with the capability to carry out such an attack. As far as we know, Israel lacks both the sensor technology and the munitions for the job.

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/irans-nuclear-molemen/#ixzz0l6ArYVgD

In the week in which Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said his company is now “paranoid” about security (not an advert for Chrome at all), a lone milkman in the UK has expressed a paranoia that seems to have been dismissed by the great search engine in the sky (and on the ground).

Gordon Rayner is a 54-year-old man without a mountain bike.

He used to have a mountain bike, but, according to the Telegraph, Rayner says Google’s infinitely discreet Street View cameras published a picture of it to the world–which includes the underworld. The cameras happened upon his house, you see, while his garage door was open.

“When you look at the photograph, my face is blacked out, the windows of my house are blacked out but because the garage door was left open, you can clearly see everything in there,” he told the Telegraph.

The bike was stolen last month and thieves then made a return visit just to see if there was anything more they could take, but somehow didn’t manage to get back into the garage. “It is just an invitation for any criminal to take what they like,” Rayner told the Telegraph.

Google reportedly said that there has been no increase in crime since their cameras began to record the world’s innards. And one wonders whether criminals really have ceased to skip casing joints and turned to merely smoking them while scanning Street View looking for open garage doors. Somehow, I doubt it.

Users of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter could face higher insurance premiums because burglars may be using them to find out their personal details.

Millions of users post details about their home, as well as holiday plans, acting as an invitation to the burglars, according to insurers Legal & General.

The warning comes as a report called The Digital Criminal, commissioned by Legal & General, and prepared by Michael Fraser, the star of BBC’s Beat The Burglar, has been launched.

The Digital Criminal report, which polled 2,000 social network users, found nearly two fifths had posted details of their holiday plans, with nearly two thirds of 16-24 year-olds doing so.

Mr Fraser, a reformed thief, said: “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that burglars are using social networks to identify likely targets.

“They gain confidence by learning more about them, what they are likely to own and when they are likely to be out of the house.

“I call it ‘internet shopping for burglars’. It is incredibly easy to use social neyworking sites to target people, and then scope out more information on their actual home using other internet sites like Google Street View, all from the comfort of the sofa.”

Graham Cluley, from web security firm Sophos, said it was “staggering” what information people were putting online.

“Our research shows that 41 per cent of people are divulging personal and private information to complete strangers on Facebook, such as their date of birth, where they worked, where they lived and what they were doing,” he said. “People are boasting about how they are having a fantastic time on a beach in Mexico on a webpage that has their home address.

“Criminals who put together the jigsaw can use it for identity theft or burglary. It is just as dangerous as leaving your windows or doors open at home.”

The report also found that almost half were unconcerned about social networking security. In an experiment, 100 friend requests were issued to random stranger. Nine out of 10 Twitter users accepted the stranger as a friend, with more than one in 10 Facebook users.

Privacy groups however have said insurance companies will simply use social networking sites to increase premiums.

Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, told The Daily Mail: “This is a disgraceful attempt to leverage yet more from customers.”

Malcolm Cooper, director of pricing and underwriting at Legal & General, said: “It’s a challenging one for the insurance industry. Just because someone is burgled, you can’t prove that it’s down to details posted on Facebook.

“It could be that we start asking how many youngsters are in the home for example.”

He said: “I had a few jobs when I left school at 15 but never really settled. Then I joined here and have never left.

“I viewed it as a long-term job but never had any idea I would be here for this long.”

In fact, before joining Mr Allinson had ideas of a future far away from locks, keys and metalwork.

He said: “When I was young and single, me and a few mates had plans to buy a bar in Ibiza, but you get a mortgage and get married and your priorities change.”

Mr Allinson was born in Ovenden and went to Oven-den Secondary Modern, and later The Ridings School. He has always lived in Calderdale.

He claims to have cut so many keys it would be impossible to count but guesses the figure would be into the hundreds of thousands.

“I’ve been in my role as a locksmith for 35 years and the techniques haven’t really changed in all that time. You can automate some of the processes but you will always need that human input to ensure the quality and accuracy.

“Nowadays I can probably cut a high-quality key in under 10 minutes.”

“I would maybe have retired a few years earlier if I’d had the money.”

A MAN has spoken out after a dispute over a parking ticket led to him being faced with a fine for more than £700.

Locksmith Adriano Terrode, from Kitchener Road, Walthamstow, was accused of a parking violation as he delivered goods to AA Security, Green Lane, Ilford in July last year.

Although he appealed the original charge, he was recently hit by a bailiff’s fee for £395.04, with an additional £350 charge if he does not pay, yet has had no acknowledgement of the appeal.

Mr Terrode, 44, said: “I just don’t know how they can justify more than £700 for a parking ticket which wasn’t even attached to my car.

“Redbridge Council needs to cancel the ticket, because you just cannot start charging people without letting them make an appeal.”

The father-of-two has got the support of AA Security’s managing director, Wilson Chowdhry.

Mr Chowdhry said: “At this time of economic uncertainty, it is just wrong to charge someone such a huge fine – and even worse to not allow him the chance to appeal.”

Redbridge Council claimed it had sent Mr Terrode letters, informing him his appeal had not been successful.

A spokesman said: “The council has a policy not to discuss the specific details of parking appeals with anyone other than the appellant.

“However, the council can assure residents that it does thoroughly consider all appeals.”

Police have issued an urgent appeal for information after powerful medicine and bullets were stolen in a house burglary in north Wales.

They said the break-in happened at the home of an RSPCA worker in Llangernyw, Abergele, Conwy on Saturday.

As well as personal items like bank cards, a metal box containing two glass bottles of the medicine Pentbarbitone Sodium and bullets was stolen.

Officers said they are concerned where these items are.

The robbery took place sometime between 1230 GMT and 1830 GMT on Saturday.

North Wales Police said anyone who witnessed any suspicious vehicles or suspicious behaviour in the Llangernyw area should come forward.

Anyone with information should contact officers at St Asaph on 101, or 0845 607 1001 (Welsh line) or 0-845 607 1002 (English line), or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

The threat of a terrorist attack has been raised to “severe” amid fears that al-Qaeda is planning a wave of attacks following the attempted Detroit bombing.

 Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab set an explosive device attached to his body alight while on the Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25. Alan Johnson’s announcement means that an attack is now “highly likely”. The decision follows analysis by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), a unit within MI5, and indicates an attack is now “highly likely.”

It was made following briefings to the Prime Minister by the heads of the security services MI5, MI6 and GCHQ and a meeting of the Government’s Cobra emergency committee.

Those present will include Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Sources said the Detroit attack on Christmas Day, which demonstrated a new methodology and increased threat, was “one of the factors” but said the decision is taken after looking at intelligence “in the round.”

MI5 is watching around 2,000 individuals across Britain although the activity among domestic extremists is not thought to have risen significantly in recent months.

Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary said: “I should stress that there is no intelligence to suggest than an attack is imminent.

“JTAC keeps the threat level under constant review makes its judgments based on a broad range of factors, including the intent and capabilities of international terrorist groups in the UK and overseas.

“We still face a real and serious threat to the UK from international terrorism so I would urge the public to remain vigilant and carry on reporting suspicious events to the appropriate authorities and to support the police and security services in their continuing efforts to discover, track and disrupt terrorist activity.”

Gordon Brown warned earlier this week that “a number of terrorist cells are actively trying to attack Britain and other countries.”

His speech to the House of Commons came after he received a briefing on the latest intelligence at a meeting of the Cabinet’s National Security Committee.

Mr Brown said the failed attack over Detroit on Christmas Day signalled “the first operation mounted outside Arabia by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”

He also talked about the increased threat from Somalia in East Africa and the Sahel in West Africa, adding that there would be a greater degree of intelligence sharing with foreign countries.

Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab, who tried to set off a bomb in his underwear, has warned his FBI interrogators that up to 20 “more like me” may be preparing further attacks.

The government is setting up a new ‘watch list’ system to try and stop terrorist suspects boarding planes.

MI5, MI6 and the GCHQ listening centre have also begun setting up “joint investigating and targeting teams”, which are designed to address potential threats before suspects might reach Britain.

The teams are designed to work with the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre to collect, share and use intelligence.

The US Department for Homeland Security said the measures effectively put Britain at the same alert level as America following the Christmas Day attack.

Severe is the fourth of five threat levels. The level was reduced to “substantial” last July for the first time in four years after a judgment was made that there had been a “chilling” effect on terrorism in Britain.

The assessment is based on a range of factors including intelligence, current terrorist activity, comparison with events in other countries and previous attacks.

MI5 say that it is rare that specific intelligence about a threat is available and can be relied on and that more often, judgements about the threat will be based on a wide range of information, which is often “fragmentary”.

Those elements include what is known about the capabilities of terrorists, the method they may use, and the potential scale of the attack as well as the targets they would consider attacking.