Sir – Mr Stansfeld’s claim (April 17) that as Police and Crime Commissioner he has brought burglary rates down (by telling the police it was “a priority” — before that, they thought it was harmless fun?) is as absurd as his claim to represent the public on the votes of less than five per cent of electors.
Victim surveys, universally recognised as far more reliable than police figures (which even the Chief Inspector of Constabulary now admits are routinely ‘massaged’) show crime rates collapsed across the UK from 1995 on. Domestic burglary rates fell from peak of 84/1,000 households in 1995 to 32/1,000 by 2005-06.
Falls since then have been much slower.
Moreover, this is the case across the developed world: burglary rates in 26 countries fell by a quarter between 1995 and 2004. In sum, this is a global trend and most of it happened before police and crime commissioners were dreamed of, and in countries which have been spared their existence.
No one really knows why it happened, but it is a safe bet that Mr Stansfeld had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Julian Le Vay, Oxford