What the rising crime rates mean

There is no getting away from it. Figures don't tell lies, not these ones at any rate. And they mean Jack Straw, the home secretary, has to digest the very unpalatable fact that crime in the UK has soared in the last 12 months.

But how significant are the new figures, released by the Home Office today, and whose explanation for the increase should we believe?

If the question wasn't tricky enough, there are whispers that the statistics released today mask the true extent of the problem. An independent report due out shortly will claim that the figures in England and Wales are at least 20% higher than those recorded by the police, and that hundreds of thousands of offences - including assaults, burglaries and car crimes - have been excluded because of police inefficiency and bureaucracy.

This report, by the inspectorate of constabulary, is interesting, but not truly significant. Police inefficiency and bureaucracy are not new issues. They were prevalent in 1999 and many years before. The inspectorate is banging the same old drum and its conclusions are valid only if taken in the broadest sense, rather than focused on one particular year.

There have always been wrangles over crime figures. The last British crime survey, which evaluates experience of crime, estimated that there were 20m incidents in a single year. The Home Office figures, which cover crimes recorded by the police, say that there were 5.3m last year. Neither invalidates the other.

Changes in the way violent crime is added up may have given an artificial look to the increase in this category. Common assaults are now included, but they should have been last year too. There could also be a delayed effect on the figures due to police forces coming to grips with new procedures. However, this cannot account for the number of violent crimes against the person increasing by 16%.

Yet Mr Straw hasn't tried to bamboozle us with smoke and mirrors. The rises are real and the home secretary thinks he knows where to lay the blame.

"There is a real problem, a really serious problem about alcohol and violence," he said today.

"I think young people have got more money in their pocket and there is a greater susceptibility to get drunk."

The Tories insist the solution is more Bobbies on the beat. Some senior police officers agree, but most, privately at least, admit that this knee-jerk response will not bring down crime rates. Sheffield, where crime fell last year, has proved that intelligence-led, target-based policing, is the way forward, not more officers walking the streets.

The argument is unlikely to sway Middle England. In one sense, Mr Straw's problems have only just begun.