Policing in Scotland

As you may have seen earlier in the week, Reform Scotland has announced that Glasgow is now more violent than New York*.

I'm not a statistician but is the difference between 631.30 incidents per 100,000 people hugely better than 731.39 per 100,000. I mean obviously there are 100 more incidents per 100,000 people but on the scale of things that doesn't suggest that the good folk of Glasgow are just meandering about and battering the hell out of each other? What do they count as Glasgow - Glasgow city (which has around 580,000) or the Greater Glasgow conurbation (which will take into account the housing estates on the outskirts) which has 1.75m? What Reform Scotland considers as Glasgow may have a huge influence on this.

Furthermore, we don't know what sort of violent incidents these mean. I would imagine, and perhaps I am being naive, that you are more likely to be shot in New York than you are in Glasgow.

Finally, in both cities, I would imagine that many of the violent incidents take place in fairly specific areas - for example, you are more likely to be beaten up/shot/mugged in Possilpark or Easterhouse than you are, say, in the West End of Glasgow.

So, I have some issues about the methodology. However, even if we accept that Glasgow is a place where life is nasty, brutish and short (as opposed to the majority of the population being nasty, brutish and short), is Reform Scotland's solution viable or sensible?

The report told how New York had introduced a more accountable and transparent police service, combined with a zero tolerance approach to policing and it said that crime in the American city fell by 67% between 1993 and 2004.

Ok. A more accountable and transparent police services is desirable but is it true that zero tolerance worked? As Steven Levitt has pointed out, crime across the USA fell during those years - regardless of whether policing was ''zero tolerance'', ''no broken windows'', ''more bobbies on the beat' or ''community policing''.

Others have stated that fall in NYC's crime rate was largely to do with the end of the crack cocaine epidemic. This might be pertinent then...

Glasgow City has the worst levels of heroin addicition in Scotland (3.31 percent of the population). The average heroin addict needs to steal £160,000 worth of stuff per annum to feed their habit. Now if 3.31% of the 580,000 need to steal around £160,000 worth of goods and cash to feed their habit, I think we have found one of the major causes of violent crime. Drug addicts may well commit violent crime (burglary, mugging, armed robbery etc) to feed their habit. Others will go into prostitution etc.

Perhaps Reform Scotland should be asking for heroin to be decriminalised and available over the counter - I'd imagine that would do a lot to cut violent crime, petty crime and prostitution rates within the city. It would also fit with Reform's overarching principals.

RS

* Why New York is always used as a comparison I don't know. I'd imagine, and this may be simple Edinbugger snobbery, that Glasgow has always been fairly violent... Is Glasgow like NYC in many ways? Are there better comparisons within the UK - say Liverpool, Manchester or Newcastle? Or in Europe?