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Is Birmingham going downhill as a destination?....


Wanderer Vagabond

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1 hour ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

:unsure:

To perhaps go slightly political, I think it is possibly connected with the reduction in the Police Forces. If there aren't sufficient Police to deal with the niggling things (and there aren't) the little sh*ts will continue to push their luck onto bigger things. The 'argument' that because we had falling crime we didn't need many Police seemed to me as fallacious as an earlier argument that since we aren't at war with anyone we don't need much of a military, a thinking that led directly to the Falklands War. We've now cut back the Police forces and, what a surprise, crime is starting to rise again.

Crime is not rising - it's still falling at about 5%/yr, and is now about 1/3 of the level of its maximum about 20 years ago  https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingsept2016#what-is-happening-to-trends-in-crime

(This report also makes the point that police reporting has been downgraded from 'national statistics' because of quality issues).  

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Many years ago I was involved in assurance over crime data.  It was a mess.  To avoid comparison the stats baselines were constantly changed.  When I did unfurl the data and compared like for like, the statements made by the Xxx police force had to be retracted as being wildly inaccurate.

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It's always a shame to hear of these sort of things happening. But as has been said, you can get unlucky anywhere. We stopped at windmill end, Delph and gas street last year and felt completely safe, the same in Banbury. I think only Stalybridge have we had incidents with kids but that hasn't put us off yet! I have heard via Facebook of plenty of antisocial incidents in London where I feel there is still a high police presence so not sure if it is directly related to police numbers...

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51 minutes ago, cuthound said:

I've always found Birmingham an uphill destination from whatever direction you approach it :D

You got there first, I'd been thinking of posting words to that effect, however it's not entirely true. It's three locks down from Wolverhampton or Park Head, and I think there might be one or two other odds and ends of the BCN I haven't done which are above Birmingham.

It was some miles outside Birmingham itself, but so far the only place I've had stones thrown at me was on the Birmingham and Fazeley.

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Re crime statistics, I read somewhere of an interesting piece of research a few years ago linking them to lead in petrol. Someone in the US, seeing that in general global crime statistics had peaked about 20 years after the peak use of lead in petrol, tested the idea by comparing the history of crime figures from individual US states against the varying dates that the individual states had reduced the use of lead. He reckoned these matched well and thus supported the theory, i.e. that someone exposed to lead at a very young age, perhaps as a baby or even during pregnancy, is more likely to commit crime when grown up.

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8 minutes ago, Peter X said:

Re crime statistics, I read somewhere of an interesting piece of research a few years ago linking them to lead in petrol. Someone in the US, seeing that in general global crime statistics had peaked about 20 years after the peak use of lead in petrol, tested the idea by comparing the history of crime figures from individual US states against the varying dates that the individual states had reduced the use of lead. He reckoned these matched well and thus supported the theory, i.e. that someone exposed to lead at a very young age, perhaps as a baby or even during pregnancy, is more likely to commit crime when grown up.

Statistics are a nonsense I have said this before. The figures that statistics are based on in all walks of life have since time immamorial been massaged by the powers that be to suit whatever they see fit. I will give a true first hand example of how statistics are not to be trusted. In 1981 as a young PC the area I policed was going through a particular bad time of Burglaries from buildings, usualy secure locked garages in a large housing estate. We were all recording these crimes as what they were " Burglaries " they is no ambiguity they were burglaries. We were briefed that as from blah blah date we were to record them as thefts from sheds ( insecure outbuildings ) The figures then PROVED for statistics that whilst thefts had risen in our area the more serious offence of Burglary had in fact reduced down to good policing of course. There are Lies, damned lies and then Statistics. I never take anything that statistics claim to prove with any seriousness. Before anyone says that was then and this is now.......Precisely nowt has changed.

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3 minutes ago, Peter X said:

You got there first, I'd been thinking of posting words to that effect, however it's not entirely true. It's three locks down from Wolverhampton or Park Head, and I think there might be one or two other odds and ends of the BCN I haven't done which are above Birmingham.

It was some miles outside Birmingham itself, but so far the only place I've had stones thrown at me was on the Birmingham and Fazeley.

Actually I think post No.7 got there first.

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1 minute ago, junior said:

Actually I think post No.7 got there first.

Do you have numbers?  Post numbers disappeared in the Great Upheaval.  I for one would like to see them back, despite the reiterated 'improved' method of referring to earlier posts.

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11 minutes ago, Mac of Cygnet said:

Do you have numbers?  Post numbers disappeared in the Great Upheaval.  I for one would like to see them back, despite the reiterated 'improved' method of referring to earlier posts.

I think most want them back :(

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1 minute ago, DaveandDebby said:

I hadn't even noticed they'd gone. Makes no difference to me whether they're there or not.

Plenty of other peeps have been saying on other threads they miss them, they do make quoting other posts easier on long threads.

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10 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Plenty of other peeps have been saying on other threads they miss them, they do make quoting other posts easier on long threads.

Haven't noticed that either. If you quote the post, why do you need the number?

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9 minutes ago, DaveandDebby said:

Haven't noticed that either. If you quote the post, why do you need the number?

Dont worry about it. If you dont want the numbers then you dont want the numbers but some of us would like them as others have mentioned. Tell you what if we get them back why dont you pretend they are not there then you will never need to use them? Jeeeeeeesus

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14 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Dont worry about it. If you dont want the numbers then you dont want the numbers but some of us would like them as others have mentioned. Tell you what if we get them back why dont you pretend they are not there then you will never need to use them? Jeeeeeeesus

I still don't see why they're necessary. If you want to refer to a specific post in a long thread, then quote it, so it's there for easy reference. If you just put the number, then everyone has to scroll up through a long thread to find it...

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7 hours ago, OldGoat said:

All very depressing.

We love Brum - even the half empty Library as it's a focal point / turn round destination for us.

Perhaps we'll stay on the Thames in future...

What makes you say that. We have  been set adrift outside the Thames Court on 2 different occasions. One time the Thames was on red boards. Very scary

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4 minutes ago, DaveandDebby said:

I still don't see why they're necessary. If you want to refer to a specific post in a long thread, then quote it, so it's there for easy reference. If you just put the number, then everyone has to scroll up through a long thread to find it...

Of course that is possible but I find that at times I can remember a post was say around 60 or 70.  Numbers then help me find it for quoting.  Couple that with they aren't intrusive or use a lot of band width so why not?

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1 hour ago, mrsmelly said:

Statistics are a nonsense I have said this before. The figures that statistics are based on in all walks of life have since time immamorial been massaged by the powers that be to suit whatever they see fit. I will give a true first hand example of how statistics are not to be trusted. In 1981 as a young PC the area I policed was going through a particular bad time of Burglaries from buildings, usualy secure locked garages in a large housing estate. We were all recording these crimes as what they were " Burglaries " they is no ambiguity they were burglaries. We were briefed that as from blah blah date we were to record them as thefts from sheds ( insecure outbuildings ) The figures then PROVED for statistics that whilst thefts had risen in our area the more serious offence of Burglary had in fact reduced down to good policing of course. There are Lies, damned lies and then Statistics. I never take anything that statistics claim to prove with any seriousness. Before anyone says that was then and this is now.......Precisely nowt has changed.

There are loads of similar examples, I can also recall that (prior to the considerable security improvements to modern vehicles) we were getting a lot of vehicle thefts and attempt thefts. It was decided higher up that in future only actual thefts would be recorded as such, attempts were all to be recorded as criminal damage, oddly, vehicle thefts and attempts (classed together) fell quite considerably, obviously due to policing:huh:. This is why Police Crime stats were always crap and I often suggested that the British Crime Survey should have been the baseline for recording the stats since they were a neutral body, but no-one listened:unsure:

 

It is also why I don't hold much interest in the idea of the constantly reducing crime figures since they may go up and down for reasons not obviously connected. Soon after joining the Force a reasonable argument was made by one of the Training sergeants that more Police officers lead to more crime, counter-intuitive I know but his reasoning was that with more officers available there was more opportunity for the public to report crime and more incentive for officers to investigate it. These days the incentive is not to record it as a crime if they can find some way of doing so since it will just be one more job that no-one will have time or opportunity to investigate. As my earlier example of reporting a car crashing at the top of Foxton Locks one night, the call taker was trying to find whatever reason that she could not to send a Police unit to make enquiries and I do sympathise, if you haven't got much staff you try to avoid sending them to anything.

 

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Just now, Jerra said:

Of course that is possible but I find that at times I can remember a post was say around 60 or 70.  Numbers then help me find it for quoting.  Couple that with they aren't intrusive or use a lot of band width so why not?

Why not? Why? Makes no difference to most people, given that I've only seen about 4 people complaining about it. When there were post numbers, and people said but in post 36 someone said... I didn't bother going to look for it.

 

3 minutes ago, Athy said:

Derrr! To find the post so that you can quote it!

So you know the number already?

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5 minutes ago, DaveandDebby said:

 

 

So you know the number already?

Crikey, I thought I was non-technical...it is much clearer to quote, "As you said in post no 719B", than "As you said now, then or some time, in a post long ago". The latter is of necessity vague.

 

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Things change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. We've had a new system installed at work which has made an already tediously boring job completely mindnumbing. But it's there, so I've just accepted it and got on with it. Same with this forum. I was happy with the old one, even though there were no post numbers when I used the mobile version. But now we have the new forum. It's different, but it's not the end of the world. I'm sure the tech staff have more important tasks to deal with than post numbers.

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Just now, Athy said:

Crikey, I thought I was non-technical...it is much clearer to quote, "As you said in post no 719B", than "As you said now, then or some time, in a post long ago". The latter is of necessity vague.

 

No, it's much clearer and easier for you to find that post, click "quote",  then no one has to go off and find post no 719B to find out what you're talking about!

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Just now, DaveandDebby said:

No, it's much clearer and easier for you to find that post, click "quote",  then no one has to go off and find post no 719B to find out what you're talking about!

BUT YOU CAN FIND IT MORE EASILY IF YOU KNOW WHAT NUMBER IT IS!!!!!!!

Have you something against numbered posts? If so, why?

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2 minutes ago, DaveandDebby said:

 I'm sure the tech staff have more important tasks to deal with than post numbers.

Of course they probably have however there is no harm in them bearing in mind what a good number (certainly more than the 4 you suggest) would like the numbers back.   This means that either when they come across the way to do it or have time to consider it, it could be done.

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