Why is violent crime rising so quickly?

FOR most of us, Rossendale is a safe place to live.

Many of us would have no problem walking down a street after dark, or walking anywhere alone.

Yet crime statistics revealed by the Free Press last week tell another story.

Shocking new statistics show that violent crime in the Valley has shot up by more than a third over the last year.

The number of offences using violence recorded in Rossendale was 2,326 in the 12 months to February 2018 – a rise of 39 per cent from 1,671 the year before.

That’s one offence every four hours.

It’s the scale of the rise that should worry us.

As this column has said previously, there are some crimes which you are more likely to report to the police than others, such as burglary or car theft, because you need a crime reference to claim on insurance.

Other crimes, maybe you won’t always report it.

But 39 per cent up in a year is frightening.

We’ve lost police stations in this area in recent years, and as of last month, we no longer have a police station front counter we can attend in Rossendale.

It’s all well and good the police and crime commissioner offering £50k to support upgrading CCTV improvements here, but Clive Grunshaw really needs to answer why violent crime is rising so quickly.

If we all agree that prevention is better than cure, then CCTV – while welcome – is only going to help solve a crime, not necessarily stop it being committed.

The data tells us that – but what will those in charge of the police do with the data?