Kidding Around.

Not all of Fife's kids cause problems, but it appears that more and more of them are finding themselves in trouble.

"THE number of crimes committed by children in Fife has soared over the past year, bringing the total to around 11 classrooms full. A total of 275 recorded charges were made against individuals under 10-years-old last year, while the year before the number totalled 239 - 15 per cent less.The catalogue of crimes committed by children include vandalism, breach of the peace and shoplifting, while the under-10s involved were reprimanded by warning letters, referrals to Sacro - an agency to reduce offending - or the social work department."

It would never have happened in Carnegie's day. Here's hoping they learned the lesson and turned over a new leaf.

Crime up.

"RECORDED crime in Fife has gone up in the past 10 years by more than 7,000 incidents but has dropped in the past three. Figures released this week show that the number of recorded crimes in the Kingdom in 2006-07 was 30,304, compared to 22,856 in 1997-98. The increase is in all areas except housebreaking. Non-sexual violent crime went from 338 to 550 while serious assaults went from 88 to 275. However, the current overall figure has come down in the last three years from a high of 34,862 in 2004-2005."

Carnegie hates to point out that even allowing for the fact that crime fiugures have fallen over the last four years, the overall level of crime across the Kingdom is still nearly a third higher than it was in 1997-98. Is that really something that we should be happy about?

Time for the cops to get their house in order and better protect Fife's people, afterall they have more resources, cash and cops, than ever before to tackle crime and that is in large part because the police have been so good at getting extra cash ... in response to them highlighting increasing crime figures.

Do you believe?

Carnegie reads that "CRIME IN Fife plummeted by 14% in the nine months to the end of December while the detection rate rose by 3.4%. Members of the region’s police, fire and safety committee were told that reported crimes fell from 22,696 in 2006 to 19,558 last year, a drop of 3138, and the clear-up rate rose from 50.8% to 54.2%. The figures were given to councillors by Chief Constable Peter Wilson in the latest performance report on the Fife force and he pointed out that they are far better than the five-year average."

Just one problem ... do you believe the statistics given that it is reported that as many as two in three crimes go unreported because of a lack of response by the police?

Carnegie has his doubts, but never mind the Chief Constable has announced his intention of resigning already. With that kind of performance perhaps he should be persuaded to stay, or is he just a one trick pony?