HC Deb 05 February 2002 vol 379 cc836-42

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now asmourn.—[Mrs. McGuire.]

9.56 pm
Jane Griffiths (Reading, East)

In the academic circles that deal with crime, it is understood that there is something of a paradox about fear of crime. That is put most succinctly by Professor Jason Ditton from the university of Sheffield. He states: Most surveys discover that people apparently fear most being a victim of precisely those crimes they are least likely to be the victim of. He goes on to say: Little old ladies apparently worry excessively about being mugged, but they are the least likely to be mugging victims. It is generally thought that young men worry the least about being mugged, although they have the highest risk of being a victim of it.

Reading, East is a young constituency. According to the 1991 census, 65.9 per cent. of its population is of working age, which makes it 20th in that league among all the constituencies in the country. With only 14.7 per cent. of the population of pensionable age, it ranks 596th in the league table for population of pensionable age.

The fact that Reading, East is young is emphasised by the fact that 26 per cent. of my constituents—more than a quarter—belong to the 16 to 29 age group. That proportion is the 23rd largest of all constituencies in the country. That is not surprising, given that the House of Commons Library says that Reading, East is home to more than 7,000 of the almost 10,000 full-time students at Reading university.

I am a young MP—I still like to think—representing a young constituency. A large amount of my work is with young people in Reading and Woodley. Just over a year ago, I held a forum and invited thousands of young residents from Reading and Woodley to an evening at a local late-night bar. They even got the first drink free. One of the issues raised with me was crime, particularly crime against young men. However, crime was something everyone was concerned about, with young men being the particular victims.

I have continued to talk to people who came along that night, and to those people who apologised for not being able to come but who had an interest and wanted to talk to me about crime. I have also spoken to other young people who have contacted me subsequently. Crime comes up regularly as an issue of concern during meetings such as I have described. Frequently, crime is something that young people in Reading, East are angry about.

Young people are angry about curtailments on their freedom caused by crime and the fear of crime. People are worried about crime happening in places where I, as a woman, would be happy to walk on my own. Yet places where I feel safe walking on my own are places where young people in Reading often do not like to walk. If they do walk in such areas—and more of them walk than drive—they do not feel safe.

One person who has been the victim of mugging a number of times suffered another mugging on Boxing day. It happened at 9.30 in the evening. He was on a main thoroughfare that is well lit. Even on Boxing day evening, there was a lot of traffic and many people were around. That time, he lost his mobile phone and £4.

It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ainger.]

Jane Griffiths

Fortunately, some people living nearby took the young man in, talked to him and helped him to feel confident enough to go out again. Young men who have suffered in that way have had their freedom seriously curtailed. The young man that I described is aged 20 and is more than 6 ft tall.

We hear much about mobile phones and crime. In fact, I was contacted about the debate by a spokesperson for the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum. I noted what was said, but I believe that more can be done by the manufacturers and by the firms selling air time to make mobile phones less attractive to steal and to find ways to prevent their use by people who have not bought them.

We have also heard much about the decline in sales of mobile phones. One thing that has not been talked about is the impact of crime and the fear of crime on sales. Young women to whom I talk still consider their mobile phones as a fashion accessory. The look and functions are important: having the right phone matters to them. However, the young men to whom I talk do not seek out the newest mobile phones; they make do with a cheap, old-fashioned model. It is less expensive to replace if it is stolen and less desirable to steal. I see them walking along, holding cheap, clunky, old-fashioned phones, as if to say to everyone: "This is the only phone I've got, so it's not worth robbing me". So, not doing more to tackle the problem is actually resulting in depressed sales for the manufacturers.

I have heard time and time again about young people's experience of crime, especially young men's experience of mugging and street crime. The young people of Reading, East have presented me with a large amount of anecdotal evidence and I wanted to find out if any information or figures had been published about the phenomenon.

I found that most of the research and statistics concerned young men as the perpetrators of crime. Little research has been carried out on young men as the victims of crime. That is not especially surprising due to the way that young men are seen by the criminal justice system. Young men, especially groups of young men hanging around without much to do, are the stereotypical cause of fear of crime.

In the Reading with Wokingham police area that covers my constituency, 664 young people between the ages of 10 and 17 offended in the 15 months between October 1999 and December 2000. That is 2.3 per cent. of the population of that age range. A quarter of those offences were committed by young women; less than 1.75 per cent. of young men between 10 and 17 had offended during that period. Of the 664 young people who offended, 16 per cent., or 106, had committed offences against the person. To put that into context, the Reading with Wokingham area covers about 300,000 people.

The youth justice plan for the area states that most of those offences were committed against other young people. Young people who commit crimes do so mostly against other young people.

Obviously the 575 crimes in Reading, East committed by young men are 575 too many, and I support strongly the work of the local youth offending team in reducing such crime. However, I believe strongly that all young men should not be stigmatised because of those who commit crime. Because some young men commit some crimes, it is most important that we should not lose sight of the fact that some young men are the victims of crime, too.

As I said, I was looking for figures and research to get a true picture of crime against young men. In 1979, a study was carried out in two Sheffield schools, but work on young men as the victims of crime only really started in the 1990s, when work in Edinburgh over nine months revealed that half the sample had been victims of assault, threatening behaviour or theft. Follow-up work in Glasgow found that 82 per cent. of a sample of 208 12 to 14-year-olds recalled having been victimised in the previous year.

In 1992, the British crime survey, using a sample of 1,350, found that a third of 12 to 15-year-olds claimed that they had been assaulted at least once, and I want to highlight that fact. That was the first time that that survey had asked about young people being the victims of crime, but I do not recall that gaining much serious news coverage at the time. If an elderly person is attacked, it is front-page news in the local papers, if not the national papers. We can only imagine the outcry if a third of old ladies had suffered from such crime.

The 1998 British crime survey showed that young men aged between 16 and 25 were at the greatest risk of violence. That statistic was repeated in the reports carried out in 2000, and in the early figures released from the 2001 crime survey, although that records a welcome 19 per cent. fall in the number of violent crimes between 1999 and 2000. In particular, I was pleased to read that of the four categories that comprise violent crime—wounding, common assault, robbery and snatch theft—the largest fall, at 34 per cent., was recorded in wounding, which is described as assault resulting in more than trivial injury.

As I said earlier, many young men who have spoken to me have not reported the crime they have suffered, so the figures for reported crime do not reflect the reality; nor do they reflect the extent of the problem facing young men. It is widely accepted that the crime survey, based on a statistically significant survey, is a more reliable guide to true levels of crime. According to that survey, there were 406,000 muggings in the United Kingdom in 1999.

As well as asking about the number of crimes, the survey asks people to rate the incident on a scale from nought to 20. The average score for violence was 6.3, while the average seriousness score for mugging was 7.5—the highest for all violence. The figure for mugging has stayed the same each year. The important part of the survey that relates to violence covers the risk of violence to a person. On average, 4.2 per cent. of adults in England and Wales were the victims of one or more violent crimes. The figure is slightly higher for men at 5.3 per cent., than for women, at 3.3 per cent. However, more than 20 per cent. of men aged 16 to 24 were victims of violence once or more in 1999. A fifth of men aged 16 to 24 were the victims of violence in a year.

I represent the entire centre of Reading and have talked in a previous debate about the growth in nightlife. On the whole, that change is welcome, given the extra jobs that it has created, and there is now much greater choice when going out. Indeed, going out at night in my constituency is safer than it was five or 10 years ago because of the number of people around, but many people say that the increase in nightlife has resulted in increased violence. Everyone involved in the night-time economy, as well as the police, had a part to play in tackling the increase in violence in the town centre that occurred in the two years from April 1992. However, saying that Reading is sloshing in blood just increases the fear of crime and helps no one.

I join my hon. Friends the Members for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and for Reading, West (Mr. Salter) in the campaign for more police officers on the streets at night. I am pleased that the chief constable of the Thames Valley police has found the money to civilianise 27 posts in Reading this year as part of a pilot scheme. I also congratulate the police authority on taking the decision to increase the authority's budget by £5 million to extend the civilianisation. I look forward to those officers being on the streets of Reading and Woodley.

I referred earlier to someone who had been mugged a number of times and suffered again on Boxing day. That crime, like the others he has suffered, was not reported to the police. That is not an unusual response by young men to that kind of crime. As a result, the police do not know where such crime happens; nor do they find out whether patterns occur at certain places. In fact, they have no record of most of the muggings against my constituents.

The British crime survey shows us that most muggings take place on the street, that 70 per cent. of them involve more than one person, and that in 93 per cent. of cases at least one of the offenders is male. In 40 per cent. of the violent incidents, victims judged that the offender was under the influence of alcohol, but that is least likely for mugging, where the figure is 17 per cent. As the survey says, that is probably a result of the premeditated nature of the offence.

We therefore know that mugging is most likely to involve a group of males in the street, but that knowledge does not get us much further forward. We also know that mugging has been very unlikely to take place in the centre of Reading since the welcome introduction of closed circuit television. However, I have talked to young men in my constituency, and it seems that mugging happens most frequently to young people on radial routes into and out of the centre of Reading and Woodley in the evening and at night.

I would like crime reduction officers from the police to visit young men where they are—in the schools, colleges, offices and the university. I would like those young men to talk about their experiences in Reading of street crime and to talk about the places where it happens and what happens. The aim of that is to try to get young men to understand the importance of reporting street crime and to try to get them to think that people are interested in hearing about what they have experienced. I do not want some young men to get into street crime themselves because they believe that no one takes it seriously. I do not want the victims of street crime to become its perpetrators. I would like information to be collected as intelligence.

I started this debate as a result of the approaches that I had received from young men in Reading, East, and I hope that that remark will not be misconstrued. When they had told me about the levels of crime that they were facing, I was astonished. I must admit that I found it hard to believe that young men in Reading and Woodley could be facing so much violence. I want there to be Government action to tackle this problem for our young men. I want action to be taken to show them that someone cares about what happens to them. Most of all, I want action to show young men in my constituency that, if they get involved, talk to the authorities and engage in dialogue, they can change things. Politics does work.

10.11 pm
The Minister for Criminal Justice, Sentencing and Law Reform (Mr. Keith Bradley)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Jane Griffiths) on obtaining this debate and on raising such important issues. Her description of Reading, East very much reminded me of my constituency of Manchester, Withington: it contains many students and young people and there is much activity on the streets at night because of the range of facilities that are available. As a Minister and local Member of Parliament, I recognise my hon. Friend's concerns and I welcome the way in which she described the problem to us. I know that the whole House is united in wanting to prevent crime, in wanting offenders to be brought to justice and in wanting to ensure support for victims.

In responding to my hon. Friend's points, I particularly want to focus on what we are doing for victims. But I first want to outline the measures that we are taking to reduce violent crime and to increase public confidence in the criminal justice system. My hon. Friend provided a range of statistics that reinforce the need to tackle these issues.

Increasing confidence is particularly important because, as my hon. Friend has highlighted, far too many crimes go unreported. The 2000 British crime survey revealed that only a quarter of young male victims reported crimes to the police. Those young men accept being a victim as a way of life—as something about which they can do nothing, or in some cases about which they are afraid to do anything. If they are not prepared to report crimes against themselves, it is not surprising that they are unwilling to come forward to make a statement or give evidence when others are victimised. That makes our fight against youth crime all the more difficult. However, it remains one of our key priorities to tackle the problem.

Let me outline some of the many measures that we have implemented across government. First, we have focused on the family, with initiatives such as sure start to improve the life chances of pre-school children.

Secondly, we have focused on factors that can lead to crime, and we are spending £600 million to tackle school truancy and exclusion.

Thirdly, we are tackling deprivation, with the £900 million that we are investing in England's most deprived neighbourhoods where we know that crime and delinquency are particular problems.

Fourthly—my hon. Friend mentioned this—we are transforming the youth justice system, with the establishment of the Youth Justice Board and a network of local youth offending teams to co-ordinate efforts against youth crime as never before. I join my hon. Friend in congratulating those teams on the work that they are doing in local areas. They are making a difference and are pulling agencies together as we try to find solutions to the problem.

Fifthly, we are introducing other measures and programmes such as the intensive supervision and surveillance programme, which will focus on the hard core of young offenders and help to tackle youth offending more effectively.

We have also provided substantial investment to address the problem of robbery, most of which, as my hon. Friend rightly explained, is committed by young men against other young men. We have provided the five metropolitan forces with an additional £20 million to develop and assess initiatives. We want them to establish and share good practice with other forces such as the one that covers my hon. Friend's constituency. We have set them the challenging target of reducing street robbery by 14 per cent. by March 2005.

The recent surge in the theft of mobile phones will make that target even more challenging, but that is not just a problem for the police; it concerns us all. We are working with the mobile phone industry to find ways to make phones more secure. We have considered measures that United Kingdom phone operators can take to make stolen phones unusable and therefore worthless. Parents and teachers also need to provide better advice to young people about how they can avoid becoming the victims of such crimes.

When a crime takes place, it is right that there should be a robust sentencing policy. The guidelines issued by the Lord Chief Justice last week related specifically to robbery rather than theft. Robbery is an offence that involves the use of force and, frequently, violence, threats and intimidation. It is a serious offence that deserves a serious punishment.

It is essential, however, that more cases get to court so that magistrates and judges can give appropriate sentences to offenders who appear before them. For that to happen, we obviously depend on victims and witnesses being prepared to trust in the criminal justice process so that they participate in the actions of the court. The sad fact is that most victimised young men have no such trust. Whether consciously or not, they weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of reporting the crime, and nearly three quarters think that it is not worth the bother. If they know the offender, and many do, they fear retaliation. If they have offended previously themselves, and some have, they fear the police will not believe them. They might think they will not receive support as the case progresses, and could be daunted by the prospect of giving evidence in court.

Since we took office, we have implemented a programme of measures which in time should begin to allay those fears. We have more than doubled the grant to the voluntary organisation, Victim Support. The £25 million it now receives annually ensures that it offers a wide range and better quality of service in every part of England and Wales.

The previous Government established a victim and witness support service in the crown courts. From this April, we will have extended that to every magistrates court. Support will be available from the very beginning of the process, and cases will be less likely to fail or collapse.

The police now routinely inform victims when a suspect has been charged, and the Crown Prosecution Service is implementing a system to ensure that it communicates its decisions about cases to victims. With the witness support service, it ensures that the victim receives all the required pre-court support—consistent, of course, with the need to, safeguard a fair hearing or trial. Through the victims personal statement scheme, implemented last October, we have ensured that victims are able to make a written statement outlining the effect of the crime on their lives, which includes an opportunity for them to let the criminal justice agencies know if they fear further victimisation so that effective preventive measures can be put in place.

The package of measures that I have highlighted tonight demonstrate, I hope, the priority that we are giving to tackling crime and supporting victims. It is essential that they feel empowered and not marginalised by the criminal justice process. That is a long-term strategy that depends on every agency working closely together and, in turn, every agency fulfilling its responsibilities to victims. We need to convince the public generally and young male victims in particular that justice can be secured if they take positive and constructive action.

We have made a start, but I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend, and support the need for more police on the streets; the use of CCTV cameras; and her views about the way in which crime reduction officers could be used more effectively in schools and colleges to address young men's fears and problems with the system. My hon. Friend brought those issues home to us effectively tonight. She clearly recognises that work has been done, but we all accept that much more needs to be done if we are to tackle the problem of street crime; people not reporting crime; people not wishing not participate in the criminal justice system; and, in this case, the sad but impressive statistic of the number of young people, particularly men, suffering from the problem of street crime. I welcome the debate, and shall look carefully at my hon. Friend's contribution to see what more can be done to ensure that the problems in Reading, East and throughout the country are addressed more effectively.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Ten o'clock.