Kent police are currently working hard to solve the Securitas depot robbery by using the full range of investigative techniques at their disposal. We have been told that no stone will be left unfingerprinted in the search for the missing millions. Quite when the crime will be solved is anyone's guess, but one presumes it will be when £53 million has been recovered and the kidnappers and robbers are all in jail.
The modern police service is dedicated to solving crime and when police have sufficient evidence to charge a suspect with a criminal offence, then that particular crime is deemed to be have been solved or "detected". The more crime a force detects, the more effective it is supposed to be.
However, it may surprise you that the single most important method of solving crime these days isn't DNA
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evidence or fingerprints; it isn't even CCTV or witness evidence. In statistical terms, the biggest single source of detections is the "administrative detection".
Administrative detections work on the basis that members of the public report crimes of such breathtaking triviality that they don't wish to make a formal complaint and press charges. The police then create a "crime" and set about investigating the matter as if there really was a formal complaint. When we gather enough evidence, we put all the papers in a file labelled "detected" and hey-presto, a solved crime.
In many forces, 20 to 30 per cent of detected crime now falls into the category of "administrative detections"; the sole purpose of this scandalous statistical sleight of hand is to fool the public into believing that we are effective crime-fighting organisations. 
FIRST POSTED MARCH 8, 2006
 Previous: send criminals to prison
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