Fun Online Polls: The fall in crime & Help To Sell Buy

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Which of the following reasons do you think explain the fall in crime over the last twenty years? Multiple selections allowed.

Better locks and alarms on cars, kill switch on mobile phones - 49 votes
Consumer goods have become cheaper - 38 votes
Doubling of prison population - 33 votes
Computer games and online porn - 29 vote
Reversion to the mean - the 1970s and 1980s were a blip - 21 votes
Banning lead in petrol - 21 votes
Legalisation of abortion - 20 votes
More CCTV - 15 votes
Falling alcohol and drug consumption - 12 votes
Oestrogen in tap water - 7 votes
Better policing - 5 votes
Spread of civilisation - 0 votes
Other - please specify - 26 votes

I'd like to thank everybody who took the time and trouble to read through the list and choose the most likely explanations, an average of two or three each. No explanation scored a convincing majority, but the first three do look very plausible.

Twenty-six people chose "Other - please specify", but only half a dozen bothered to specify, which was mainly that the statistics are fudged; that crimes are being reclassified as non-crimes; or that people just don't bother reporting crimes any more. That may be so, but if it's that easy, why didn't The Powers That Be think of this during the 1970s and 1980s when crime rate were - officially - rising rapidly? And why have falling crime rates been noticed in most countries over the past twenty years, it is a worldwide, long term trend (which hopefully will not end any time soon)?

It's a fascinating topic but the truth is, nobody really knows what the truth is.
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This week, let's do Help To Sell Buy.

Vince Cable came out fighting yesterday (via JackC at JPC):

A flagship government scheme to revive the housing market could inflate it, Business Secretary Vince Cable warns...

The Help to Buy scheme provides equity loans of up to 20% for buyers of new-build homes in England and will start part-guaranteeing mortgages for buyers across the UK from next year.

"I am worried of the danger of getting into another housing bubble," Mr Cable told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show...

Be that as it may, you can record your approval or disapproval here or use the widget in the sidebar.