Jasbird wrote:
> I think even the wingers in news:alt.food.wine will be glad to
> hear this news. Deregulation leads to less crime - the facts
> don't lie.
>
> <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4692016.stm>
>
> Violence down amid pub law change
>
> Violent crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales fell
> by 11% at the end of last year, despite longer pub opening hours
> coming in, figures show.
>
I don't see how these figures can saying anything about the effects of
longer pub opening hours and they came into effect in late November.

> The Home Office figures for the last three months of 2005
> include a six-week period when the police were given £2.5m to
> target alcohol-related crime.
>
> The figures are the first since licensing laws were changed in
> November to allow extended drinking hours.
>
> Police have said it will take longer to assess the full impact
> of the changes.
>
I would agree with the police.

> Half of all violent crime is linked to excessive drinking and
> the government had been waiting to see how the figures would be
> affected by longer opening hours for pubs and clubs.
>
> To nip potential problems in the bud, the Home Office gave the
> police and trading standards departments £2.5m to target binge
> drinking between 12 November and Christmas.
>
> With more officers on the streets at night, violent crime went
> down by 11% overall, with an even sharper fall in more serious
> types of offence, the figures show.
>
> However, BBC crime correspondent Neil Bennett said it was not
> possible to draw firm conclusions about the effects of extended
> opening hours from these figures alone.
>
> He said: "The extra money to tackle drink-related violence has
> now run out and - as the figures for mugging showed recently -
> when specially targeted operations stop, so crime tends to go up
> again."
>
> When the new licensing laws came in on 24 November, police
> forces said the full implications would not be clear for at
> least six months.
>
> At the time, about 1,000 premises had 24-hour licences, with
> thousands more licensed to extend opening times by only one or
> two hours.
>
I fully supported the deregulation of pub opening hours and I am sure that
over the long term it will reduce alcohol related violence but it is a bit
too soon to expect to see any changes from official statistics.

It reminds me a bit of the Gun Control Network (sic) who were crowing over
the reduction in armed crime in 1998, claiming it was due to the
confiscation of target shooters' pistols. It turned out the 98 figures were
atypical and we have seen serious year on year increases since then, which
the GCN has not been so keen to brag about.