TWO of the hottest hot spots on the new national police map of crime are in Stevenage.
Lytton Way, where Stevenage Police Station is, and nearby Danestrete, which has the council offices, were both in the top 100 places for crime in December, according to the map which charts reported crime and anti-social behaviour in England and Wales.
But despite the high figures of 99 reports on Lytton Way and 63 on Danestrete, a spokesman for Herts Police said the figures relate to a wider area which is subject to “distortion”.
He said: “There are real anomalies with this system. It’s not just that street - it’s that and surrounding streets. Probably only a third or a quarter of the total number of streets are included.
“A lot of crimes are probably being crimed at the police station. Somebody reports a crime at the police station and it will come up as happening in the area.
“You have the railway and transport problems. If somebody was on the train coming up to Stevenage a crime might have happened earlier and they got out and reported it in Stevenage. You get a distortion.
“You have a town centre where not many people live but you have thousands of people visiting, then you get a distorted crime rate.
“You’ve got the Leisure Park that’s where a lot of our officers are at the weekend and the train station – that’s where you get the high levels of crime. It doesn’t mean that these places are massively dangerous places to visit.”
