Now it's very crime-addled.
However almost all of it goes unreported.
it's only after leaving a culture like that you realise it's so strange.
Edit:
Hm, I got downvoted.
Lets see if I can break down a summary of my life for people who don't think Coventry is bad (news articles in google seem to say it's not bad anymore).
but, stats: I've been mugged 17 times in 20 years, my home has been burgularised 4 times. 26 bikes have been stolen (locked and chained), I've been stabbed, I've been beaten in the streets by gangs of men.
I've been threatened with peeling (by asian boys in school).
Coventry is not safe, the city center is made safe by excessive policing, but "Hillfields" (drug and prostitute capital of the midlands at least) and "Wood End" (which isn't even POLICED anymore because it's so dangerous) make coventry an unsafe place to be if not just visiting.
most people mind their own business, but if you look like you have money, those people are pirahna.
Also, we hold the world record for fastest time to strip a car of it's interior if left unlocked. (or we did when I last checked).
I'm not saying there isn't worse places in the world.. the government has done a _lot_ to reinvest in coventry.
But it's a very dangerous place to live.
You got downvoted for making an extreme claim (crime riddled; extremely dangerous place to live) that just isn't supported by stats, and then claiming that the stats are wrong.
Assuming for the moment that the police stats are wrong we'd still see increased insurance costs for people living in Coventry, and we don't.
Insurance costs are taken from crime statistics and insurance claims. Nobody I know has insurance.
the problem is that this data is completely off-radar. The Coventry people are incredibly insular and untrusting. The idea is that you are either alone, or with your community- if you're community rejects you because you don't like their kids putting rotting fish in your letter box (for example) then you're on your own.
People don't get insurance because they think that by declaring their assets they invite people who work in the insurance firms to sell that information to burglars. (which does happen occasionally).
Crime goes mostly unreported because the police are untrusted, even if they had extremely noble intentions the people in coventry are a black box in terms of information- nobody will "snitch" on anybody else.
if someone was caught snitching then that person becomes one of the "rare" cases of a stabbing or extreme coersion to leave the city. (punctured tires, cutting brake lines, random people coming to kick your door in late at night and leaving without coming in, etc)
Your statistics lie about coventry, which is my point entirely.. the problem can't be fixed because there is no statistics on the problem to begin with. Although those in the West Midlands tend to avoid Coventry except for a shopping visit.
As much as it's anecdotal, I can think of a LOT of people I know who had to leave Coventry, I should show you a cross section of the people I went to school with- Crime is a way of life there, it's not even seen as "Crime" it's just.. it just is, you know it's a crime and the police become your enemies, but they were never your friends to begin with.
Anyway, I've been on the wrong side of the law, but as soon as my environment changed I was -able- to become an upstanding person.
Your stats are lying, and I'm not trying to upset or offend you but there are places like Coventry all over the world.. unquantifiable by normal statistics.
You keep saying that Coventry is riddled with crime, but you have nothing but feels to support you.
It's not persuasive, especially in the face of reported police stats; of the British Crime Survey; of insirance prices; of house prices; of murder rates; there's nothing anywhere that supports your outlandish claim.
what you're saying is "I want stats that prove that that statistics of Coventry is going unreported". what kinda non-anecdotal proof would you like? the OP's point is that the the stats are a lie, cause most crime is unreported.
OP isn't just saying that crime is unreported. Because if all crime everywhere is unreported we can still compare Coventry with other towns, and when we do that we see that coventry has a lower than average crime rate. OP is claiming that Coventry is unique in having under reported crime and that everywhere else is accurate.
But not only that. There are other statistics - the british crime survey - (and these are robust statistics) that do not rely on crime reported to police. And OP is again claiming that Coventry is unique in reporting very low rates of crime while everywhere else reports accurate rates of crime.
But even if we assume that's true - that Coventry is unique in reporting and surveying low rates of crime while everywhere else is accurate - there are other indicators of crime. We'd expect to see higher rates for car insurace, and we don't. We'd expect to see higher rates of home contents insurance, and we don't.
OP is subject to a pretty obvious confirmation bias. "I had my bicycles stolen, and this i know Coventry is high in crime", and now they reject anything that points the other way. When you ask OP about the evidence they just come back with anecdote, when you show OP anything that contradicts that they say it's wrong (not just wrong, but wrong in very particular ways).
Now it's very crime-addled. However almost all of it goes unreported.
it's only after leaving a culture like that you realise it's so strange.
Edit: Hm, I got downvoted. Lets see if I can break down a summary of my life for people who don't think Coventry is bad (news articles in google seem to say it's not bad anymore).
but, stats: I've been mugged 17 times in 20 years, my home has been burgularised 4 times. 26 bikes have been stolen (locked and chained), I've been stabbed, I've been beaten in the streets by gangs of men. I've been threatened with peeling (by asian boys in school).
Coventry is not safe, the city center is made safe by excessive policing, but "Hillfields" (drug and prostitute capital of the midlands at least) and "Wood End" (which isn't even POLICED anymore because it's so dangerous) make coventry an unsafe place to be if not just visiting.
most people mind their own business, but if you look like you have money, those people are pirahna.
Also, we hold the world record for fastest time to strip a car of it's interior if left unlocked. (or we did when I last checked).
I'm not saying there isn't worse places in the world.. the government has done a _lot_ to reinvest in coventry. But it's a very dangerous place to live.