Don't believe all you read!

If I only ever read the headlines on websites like BBC News, Sky News, the Daily Mail, the Herald and so on, I would think Wales was some sort of hell-hole: a wee girl abducted and apparently murdered in Machynlleth, a young woman murdered in Gwynedd, a family of 3 victims of arson in Preststyn, a maniac mowing down pedestrians on the streets of Cardiff - and all in a short space of time.

A couple of weeks back, I was also wondering what on earth was happening in Dundee, where similar tragedies were being visited on families. Before that the north-east of Scotland experienced a series of horrifying deaths in car accidents, many involving young people. And, of course, Glasgow always has more than its fair share of mayhem.

And yet, I have to point out that we live in a very safe country: crime in the UK has been declining for years. In Scotland, violent crime has decreased by 55% over the past 10 years. In addition, random violence is rare: most violent crimes are committed by people known to the victim and most murderers are caught and jailed.

So why do we have the impression that violence is rife, that murderers are 'getting away with it', that we live in a lawless society?

It's partly because crime sells newspapers, so the press are always going to feature crime on their front pages. The TV news services likewise use lurid online headlines to get us to watch their bulletins. But it's also because the police (and to a lesser extent, the fire services) make sure their press officers feed the media with information. If there's anything sinister here, it's that it's in the interests of the emergency services to play up the level of serious and violent crime: it's a way of making sure the public resist cuts to the emergency services, especially frontline policing.

Cynically, I would say that scares about knife crime (which is down), random murders (down), the abduction and murder of children by strangers (almost non-existent) - all of these distract us from the less life-threatening but much scarier crimes committed around and against ordinary people: vandalism, drugs, gang activity and property theft of all kinds. These anti-social crimes affect more of us than violent crime. Why don't they appear more often in the media? Could it be because they're so much harder to deal with?

And just in passing, I have to point out that roughly one elderly person a week goes missing in Scotland, usually to be found dead later, often dementia sufferers who have wandered off. Can you imagine the hue and cry if this happened with children? Some victims just don't attract attention.....