Look at long-term trends and it is demographics, economics, employment, population upheaval and wars that count. Across Europe, you can track the rise and fall in crime against boom and bust in each country's economy. The more jobs, the less crime. But if you ask Michael Howard or this week's Daily Telegraph leader writer why crime is falling, they say it is because prison works. Numbers have risen under Labour to 65,674, with 10,000 more expected in the next six years, and still crime falls.
Home secretaries can influence prison numbers, but they bear no particular relation to crime rates.
In the US crime has been falling sharply while prison numbers quadrupled in 20 years. QED, said Howard, and used the US experience as his model. Zero tolerance in New York produced exactly the same crime drop as Houston, which has no such policy. He talks tough on prison but only whispers to the experts about the government's many measures that really might reduce the causes of crime. He has done nothing to create a better-informed electorate.