Britain must be smart on crime

Lawrence Newport
Dr Lawrence Newport - Christopher Pledger

Good news on crime is rare, but today we report that Lawrence Newport is turning his attention from dangerous dogs to career criminals. Dr Newport made his name last year by drawing public attention to the spread of American XL bully dogs.

The former law lecturer’s evidence-based approach to the in-breeding of these super-sized pit bulls persuaded the then prime minister, Rishi Sunak, to ban them, after a campaign of just 77 days.

Now this intrepid boffin is calling for a new effort by police and the courts to tackle the scourge of career criminals. Just 10 per cent of offenders account for half of all crimes – and most are getting away with it.

Dr Newport warns that more than 200,000 repeat offenders with an average of 25 previous convictions have avoided jail, including some 2,000 villains with over 100 convictions. Without prison as a deterrent, crime is a lucrative career.

We can all see the terrifying results of such impunity. For example, London is now the phone-theft capital of Europe, with over 52,000 cases last year. Professional thieves can snatch dozens of phones an hour, often using e-bikes to escape. The anonymity of e-bikes makes it hard for police to trace the culprits. All too often, they do not bother.

Phone theft is, of course, only one of many categories of crime that are seldom solved. The public has long been fobbed off with the excuse that burglaries, bike thefts, anti-social behaviour and shoplifting are low priorities for overstretched police officers. Many such incidents are not even reported, unless for insurance purposes.

But responsible citizens never grow accustomed to flagrant violations of the law, which ruin their quality of life. Ignoring “petty” offences opens the door to more serious crime, as the American political scientist James Q Wilson showed with his “broken windows” theory 40 years ago.

While the Government has announced a sentencing review, expectations that anything will change are low. The Home Secretary seems less concerned about crime than about “non-crime hate incidents”.

How much longer must the public wait before the police, the judiciary and the politicians focus on putting career criminals where they belong: behind bars?