Just found this map that tells you of the levels of crime in your area.

It also seems that the different "sub wards" I've lived in across London for the last few years are classed as high crime areas, surrounded on all sides by an average crime area... hmmm - coincidence?

Hide your bikes away, I'm obviously a danger to you all.

Surrey is below average in crime... nice

That map is utter bollox

+1

as if Dulwich has more crime than stepney!

loada shite

it's based on "Burglary, robbery and vehicle crime"

but that won't include bike theft, otherwise you have a big fucking red patch over dalston

edit: actually it does, you just have to zoom in

The main problem is how police record crime. They are obliged to produced crime stats, but use post codes which aren't fit for purpose. You have your bike stolen in from a street...the police need to record crime against a postcode....and there's as much chance that they record it against your home address as anywhere else, especially if it wasn't stolen from outside a property. Same applies to any crime happening in the street - you get mugged walking across Clapham Common, how they gonna record that, will end up being Wandsworth or Lambeth?

Then you have places like hospitals, university campuses etc. - thousands of people with one postcode, because post codes are where letters get delivered - nothing more, nothing less. Many hospitals and universities have more than one site, all served by one delivery point and post code. Also, postcodes are not consistent with ward boundaries, london borough boundaries, census geography or any other geography for that matter - so that gives us more problems.

Add to all of this the skewing affect of those people most likely to report a crime, and what you have is one almighty mess....

But bless 'em, they are trying.