SOCIETY : Drop in British Crime Seen as Equal Parts Politics, Policing

British crooks are on the run, some top officials here say. That might make one feel safer. But don’t forget to lock up: Maybe the issue is as much politics as police work.

Good-news crime statistics that Prime Minister John Major will carry to his Conservative Party’s annual conference next week are proving as contentious as they are optimistic. Critics challenge their accuracy and their implications.

Major’s flagging government is buoyed by new figures that show a 5% fall in crime in England and Wales for the second straight year. Police-recorded crimes for the year ending in June fell 261,000 to 5.1 million. Car thefts and domestic burglaries dropped sharply, and violent crime eased slightly.

It was the greatest fall in recorded crime over any two-year period, the first recorded drop in violent crime for almost half a century and the lowest level of recorded crime for four years.

Law-and-order Home Secretary Michael Howard, the Cabinet minister responsible for law enforcement, is boasting of “a real turning point in the fight against crime. . . . The criminal is feeling the long arm of the law on his shoulder. Our recent successes show that effective action can be taken against crime.”

Crime, like stock prices, tends to flow and ebb, government spokesmen agree, but they argue that the numbers demonstrate the effectiveness of the Conservative government’s twin-track anti-crime policy.

Prevention is stressed on the one hand, with tactics ranging from neighborhood crime watches to voluntary patrols--milkmen are getting crime-spotter training--and more effective targeting of known criminals by police professionals. Better locks have thwarted some burglars and car thieves, who account for a big chunk of reported crimes--and are a major nuisance to city folk. Overall, though, Britain remains a far gentler place than the United States; 93% of crimes here are against property.

The other side of the government policy is stepped-up enforcement and stiffer punishment. The police force nationwide has increased by 16,000 since 1979 to about 50,000 officers. And those officers are arresting more people: The national prison population has swelled from 40,000 in 1993 to 51,000 now.

Old-fashioned shoe leather underpins British policing, but technology is helping. A national DNA database is being established, and closed-circuit cameras fixedly patrol centers of many cities. Two hoods who stomped their victim on camera in downtown Glasgow were promptly on their way to the hoosegow.

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Falling crime figures offer a badly needed tonic to Major, who must rally dispirited Conservatives next week at Blackpool. Polls show Margaret Thatcher’s heirs trailing badly behind Labor and fresh-faced Tony Blair, the likely next prime minister.

What disturbs nonpolitical experts is that the new crime numbers, which are becoming a political football, are from police. That leaves room for error, caution criminologists such as Michael Levi, a professor at the University of Wales in Cardiff.

“Nobody really knows how to read the numbers right. The drop in burglary, for example, might mean that people are reporting fewer minor burglaries because they are afraid insurance premiums will skyrocket. Poor people who lack faith in the police may make no reports at all,” Levi said.

A better measure than numbers assembled by police, Levi said, are those found in the biennial British Crime Survey, based on interviews about exposure to crime.

The next survey is due in 1996, but its earlier versions have all shown a large gap between the actual number of crimes and those reported to police.

“Do the new figures mean we are safer? It’s not possible to answer confidently, but there is certainly no sign things are getting worse,” Levi said. “That is important.”