Children of Blair era are paranoid about vandalism

COMING of age in the Thatcher era left people paranoid about burglary, while those who reached adulthood under Tony Blair are more concerned about anti-social behaviour, a study suggests.

Researchers at the universities of Sheffield and Southampton found that people’s perception of crime is biased by the political agenda from when they were aged between 15 and 25.

Analysis of 30 years of British Crime Survey data involving 440,000 people found that those who grew up under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher or John Major (1979-1997) feared house burglary the most – the same generation who witnessed a dramatic rise in property crime during the Eighties.

People who grew up under Blair and Gordon Brown (1997-2010) reported the highest level of concern about vandalism, teenagers loitering and noisy neighbours.

Such problems were heavily emphasised and legislated against during this political period.

The research was published in the British Journal of Criminology.