This is the thought provoking question asked by my former Editor, Bob Satchwell, or Capt’n Bob, as we called him in those hallowed days at the Cambridge Evening News, after you know who.

He is now the distinguished director of the Society of Editors and I thought you might like to read his views about crime and policing today. He asks why crime mapping is so feared, and if anyone cares for victims of crime.

And he describes how he tried to get crime mapping started in Cambridgeshire long before Boris thought of it for London.

Surely knowledge is not only power, but a personal entitlement, and all citizens have a right to know about crime in their area.

This is what Capt’n Bob said:

IT was fascinating to listen to a discussion on the Today programme about policing and particularly London Mayor Boris’ interest is American methods that appear to have had an impact on crime.

The key issue raised this time in several US cities was crime mapping. In the US every crime – however small – is recorded on a local map and then made available to websites and local newspapers.

It is wonderful. Local people and companies are made aware when a burglary happens and it encourages them to fit extra crime prevention measures.

Glory be, I thought, that was just what I tried to get started with Cambridgeshire Constabulary back in the late 1980s. Sadly my cunning plan lasted only a few months. It was scuppered by a mixture of inadequate technology at police HQ and in our office – well it was the 80s – a touch of Luddism on the part of the police and, yes, you have guessed it, political correctness.

The BBC reported that Americans thought crime mapping was great. The public were getting to know what they had a right to know. Moreover local police chiefs were being called to account about why their methods were not working as well as those in the next division. It was all quite enlightening.

Then came the dead hand of British attitudes to public information. Crime was much more sophisticated and simple maps were, well, too simple. Mapping would stigmatise areas and might not take account of local economic conditions . . . blah, blah, blah. And then there was a warning from the Information Commissioner’s Office. Yes, you have guessed it again, mapping might breach the Data Protection Act because it might, just might, identify victims of crime.

Of course crime and its causes are complicated. Yes simple down-to-earth US-style solutions have their limitations. Victims of crime do deserve sympathy and protection.

That said, are we not all victims of crime? Is prevention no longer better than cure? In the UK is it really true that we do not have that same right to know that Americans value so highly?

I personally love data, even though it can open to interpretation. I would imagine that this kind of information is available under Freedom of Information, so why is it not readily available to British communities in the US way?