Falling crime IS related to pandemic lockdowns

8 Oct 2021 | Full Fact's weekly news

FACT CHECK
Boris Johnson claims that falling crime is “not just” because of pandemic lockdowns

During a speech at the Conservative Party conference, the Prime Minister claimed that crime has been falling and that this is “not just” because of pandemic lockdowns.

He’s correct to say that there has been a drop in police recorded crime, however evidence suggests that this trend was strongly influenced by the various lockdowns.

According to Home Office statistics, there was a 13% fall in crime in England and Wales (excluding fraud) from five million offences in the year ending March 2020 to just over four million the following year. This reduction was “driven by falls in acquisitive crimes such as burglary, theft of and from vehicle offences and shoplifting.”

But the statistics say figures have been “significantly affected” by the pandemic and warns “the suppression of normal crime levels makes meaningful comparisons with the previous 12-month period challenging as the crime mix in [the] year ending March 2021 differs from the previous year.”

Let's look at the bigger picture

However, the Prime Minister isn’t the only MP getting it wrong this week

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner claimed the Prime Minister lied to say wages are rising. However, as we’ve already written, the Prime Minister was fair to say wages are rising as they have gone up in real terms over the last year, even when the effects of the pandemic have been factored in. We’ve looked into Labour’s claims.

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FACT CHECK
Sunday Times' claim on “ghost children of Covid” is missing context

On 3 October, the Sunday Times claimed new figures show that between 95,000 and 135,000 children did not return to school in the autumn term. However this claim is missing context. These figures are an estimate based on a snapshot of attendance of just one day in September 2021. While there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that pupils have not returned to school since the start of term, for a wide variety of reasons, the figures come with important caveats which weren’t included in the media reports.

We’ve since seen these figures replicated in articles published by the Sun, the Mirror, Birmingham Live, and Joe. As of 7 October, the Sun, the Mirror and Joe have updated their articles as a result of our fact check.

See how the figures were calculated

FACT CHECK
No, Amazon boxes aren’t sprayed with toxic chemicals

A Facebook post claims that all Amazon boxes are sprayed with toxic pesticides to kill rodents, and in turn can cause serious harm to cats including chemical burns on their tongues, fever, lethargy and shallow breathing. The post warns: “Emergency medical intervention will be necessary, in all cases, to prevent certain death.”

Amazon does not spray all its boxes with toxic pesticides, and as of 5 October 2021, they’ve confirmed this is still the case. Similar stories appeared around December 2020 across social media. American fact checking organisation Snopes investigated the claim, tracing it back to a woman called Alicia Plant as the person who first shared pictures of an injured cat.

Let the cat out of the bag, and into the box

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