Street Cred
‘ONE way to tell if an item is hip or not is to see how popular it is on the street.
The good news for you hip iPod owners is that your musical player is hotter than a wasabi enema. The bad news is that you might not have it for much longer. As the Mail says in a bald headline: Street crime soars as iPods tempt muggers.
The paper has seen a Home Office document that shows street crime rose by 11 per cent between July and Septembers 2005, compared to the same period in 2004.
And the Mail says this surge is partly down to the popularity of the iPod.
And its partly down to ineffectual policing. As the paper also notes, the arrival of Community Support Officers has had no effect on crime and anti-social behaviour.
The thinking was that a visible CSO presence would deter hoodies, happy slappers and other villains from committing crime. Theyd see some pretend policeman sneaking about the precinct dressed in his day-glo yellow bib and think better of vomiting over the fake cobbles.
But even though the statistics indicate that robberies and street attacks are more popular than last year, Home Office Minister Hazel Blears says that CSOs have been ‘effective in tackling low-level crime, disorder and anti-social behaviour.
But, it seems, they’ve not been effective enough. And at a cost of what the Mail calculates to be at least £50million so far, CSOs might not be good value for money.
Indeed, it might be better if those millions were spent on cutting crime in a far more radical fashion give every youth an iPod.
Thatll lean em…’
Posted: 27th, January 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
