Reoffending rates, Welsh taxes and the menopause

More or Less: Behind the Stats

BBC

Business, Mathematics, Science, News Commentary, News

4.6 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Justice Secretary Dominic Raab says crime reoffending rates in England and Wales have fallen significantly since the Conservatives came to power. We ask whether he’s right and look more broadly at crime and conviction rates with former BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw. Also we look at how much taxes in Wales might have to rise to pay for increases in NHS funding. We ask whether 13 million women in the UK are really menopausal. And we return to the debate that has sparked consternation among loyal listeners everywhere – should the word data be treated as plural or singular.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:04.5	Hello and welcome to more or less the grammatical stickler of the statistical world.
0:11.3	This week our inbox was overflowing with suggested Corrigenda and not just about the data datums
0:17.4	thing, although mostly about that, we invite a computational linguist to bring the data
0:22.9	about data and we have a Corrigendum about nurses pay.
0:26.5	We'll also be asking how much money you might raise if you tax rich Welsh people.
0:32.2	And are there really 13 million men and women in the UK?
0:37.3	But first, our next story begins as do all good stories with Justice Secretary Dominic
0:44.0	Rob sending a tweet.
0:46.5	Reoffending rates have fallen by over 2 percentage points since the same period last year, to 23.1
0:53.0	percent, down from almost 31 percent in 2009-10.
0:57.9	This shows that our investments in drug rehab, training in prisons and defender employment
1:03.3	is working and helping make our streets safer.
1:06.7	That was in October and the rate now is very slightly higher, but overall, reoffending
1:12.1	rates are down from around 30 percent 10 years ago into the low 20s today.
1:17.8	This all sounds like good news, but it's also a bit surprising, historically, reoffending
1:23.0	rates don't tend to move very much.
1:25.8	To get a deeper understanding of what this all means, we spoke to Danny Shaw, now an independent
1:31.3	policing and crime commentator, but for many years before that, a home affairs correspondent
1:36.4	at the BBC.
1:37.6	The rear fending rate isn't really the rear fending rate.
1:41.5	The rear fending rate is really the proportion of people who have been released from prison
	...

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