Met police computer bungle creates 'crime wave' in Tower Hamlets

 
Sian Boyle27 November 2013

The figures caused dismay in Tower Hamlets, an area trying to tackle its high crime rate. How could the borough see a nine per cent increase in offences when across London there had been a drop of two per cent?

Councillors had invested £1.8 million on extra police and put 40 Enforcement Officers on the streets. The answer brought relief and not a little annoyance. A computer error by the Met had produced a spike in crime in a three-year period six times greater than it really was.

Tower Hamlets actually experienced 28,670 reported crimes in the financial year 2010-11 and 29,080 in 2012-13, a rise of 410.

But the Met’s crime mapping website wrongly stated that Tower Hamlets had seen 26,989 crimes in 2010-11 and 29,510 in 2012-13, a rise of 2,521 — the wrong lower figure in 2010-11 appearing to give a dramatic increase compared to 2012-13.

The errors were revealed by the East London Advertiser, which found that Tower Hamlets crime data had been matched with the wrong years, and that crime figures for all London boroughs were published incorrectly before being swiftly corrected on the site. The error was brought to light after Labour councillors in Tower Hamlets were outraged at what seemed to be a nine per cent rise until it was discovered by a police analyst that the computer had mixed up the years.

A council spokesman told the Standard: “We are disappointed the Met issued the wrong crime figures as we are working hard to tackle crime and are working closely with the Met.

“Since October 2010 we have invested more than £1.8 million in securing additional police officers in a bid to make our borough safer. The council has 40 Tower Hamlets Enforcement Officers who work with the police.”

The Met apologised and said steps had been taken to prevent similar mistakes. A spokesman told the Advertiser: “The data was updated by an automated procedure which failed to recognise the change from the last reporting year to this one.”

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