CNJ COMMENT- Crime map politicians are getting lost in pursuit of votes

Published: 3 February, 2011

SURELY someone in the hierarchy of the police or at least that of their political masters must have heard of the law of unintended consequences.

The idea of mapping crime on a website must have sounded like music to politicians. 

We can imagine how they began to weigh the number of votes the idea would be worth in the political game of fighting crime.

But steady on, someone should have warned them – what could be the consequences?  

And cannot computer software sometimes get things wrong?

The angry response of residents in the cobbled street off Agar Grove, Camden Town, should have been foreseen (See page 1). 

If it had, greater care may have been given to the building blocks of the new website.  

It is even possible the idea may have been ditched once it had been thoroughly examined.

All over the country people are questioning the accuracy of the website.

Crime figures, like all statistics, have to be thoroughly weighted against all factors before they can be used sensibly.

It looks as if the website picture of the Agar Grove area has got it wrong.

Unfortunately, it is now registered as a crime hot spot.  

Not only is that more than likely to be wrong, but it brands the area in such a way that it is bound to affect property prices – and this at a time when property sales in London are at a low ebb. 

This was one of the unintended consequences the experts overlooked.

Time to be good sports, councillors

WE trust Camden councillors will put aside the usual arguments to be heard in these straitened times - and listen carefully to the plea by amenity organisations in the borough who are trying to build a sports complex in Barnet.

The plea of their umbrella body, Camden Active Sports Association, is eloquently spot on. Don’t put money first, they urge.

In an inner London borough like Camden sports fields are at a premium.

If our schoolchildren are to benefit from sports they need space and facilities.

And these would be found in CASA’s project.  

Councillors will come to the wrong conclusion if they simply measure CASA’s proposal by how much cash it will bring to the Town Hall’s coffers. They would do well to think hard and long about the meaning of next year’s Olympic Games.