Interesting Links for 21-1-2011

[andrewducker]

• The world is squeezing us more than Mr Osborne
  (tags: globalization pay uk)
• Alien Hand Syndrome sees woman attacked by her own hand. The brain is awesome! And a little scary.
  (tags: brains psychology)
• The truth about TV ratings, online viewing and sci-fi shows
  (tags: tv ratings scifi)
• Comparisons of male and female character art in World of Warcraft
  (tags: WorldOfWarcraft art gender sex)
• Labour planned to axe the EMA in 2015 (when school leaving age is raised to 18).
  (tags: labour politics uk education)
• "Personal Jesus" as covered by Gravity Kills. I must have listened to this 30 times in the last week.
  (tags: music DepecheMode)
• Homeopathy is witchcraft, say doctors
  (tags: homeopathy health medicine nhs badscience uk)
• What two feet of snow look like.
  (tags: snow photo funny)
• A challenge for you. See if you can manage this (needs volume, and two of your earth minutes).
  (tags: meditation 2minutes nothing)
• Top Civil Servant Says Government Departments Lost Control Of Public Spending Under Labour
  (tags: spending government labour)
• Scientists Grow Human Liver Tissue to be Used for Transplantation
  (tags: medicine health biology TheFuture)
• George Lucas denies believing the world will end in 2012. Says Elvis will be in Indy 5.
  (tags: funny GeorgeLucas 2012)
• More than 100 alleged mobsters arrested in northeast US
  (tags: crime mafia usa)
• What do we really know about love? More than you'd think...
  (tags: love emotion psychology)
• 28-days detention without charge to be allowed to lapse. Hoo-fucking-ray!
  (tags: rights uk government EpicWin)
• Recorded crime continues to fall in England and Wales - down 7% overall, all categories down except sexual offences
  (tags: crime uk)

Comments

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

The data on this are actually quite good, but the media rarely reports it well. The Home Office reports recorded crime together with the British Crime Survey, which is a half-decent measure of crime experienced. A quick flick at the original data (see e.g. http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs10/hosb1210.pdf) suggests that 'the report rate is up' is exactly what's going on here.

'Most serious sexual crime' recorded by the police ws up 7%, but the BCS datashow 'There were no changes in the overall prevalence of sexual assault between 2008/09 and 2009/10. The overall prevalence of sexual assault has fallen since 2004/05'. The simplest and most likely (though not only) explanation of the data is that there are slightly fewer sexual assaults going on but significantly more of them are resulting in a crime being recorded by the police.

It's still a startlingly low rate of reporting, though.