The former host looks back on the importance of this groundbreaking show – and questions whether it could work as effectively today. <\/p>

This feature originally appeared in\u00a0Radio Times magazine<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Crimewatch was the TV hit that no one wanted. BBC bosses were sceptical about a live crime appeal show. The police were suspicious \u2013 indeed, when it started 40 years ago this month, almost all refused to take part.<\/p>\n

Critics accused us of encouraging snitching and we ourselves worried we\u2019d be promoting a fear of crime. (Hence the ad lib that somehow became my catchphrase, \u201cDon\u2019t have nightmares, do sleep well.\u201d)<\/p>\n

No one had tried a programme whose success relied on the public calling in; and for the first 20 minutes on air, not a single phone lit up. Finally, one did\u2026 and Crimewatch went on to be one of the most successful factual series in history.<\/p>\n

But, as a presenter, at least as significant for me was discovering that almost everything I thought I knew about crime was wrong. The biggest, most shocking realisation came in 1995, when crime began to fall. Oh yes. Crime did start falling \u2013 and it\u2019s still doing so.<\/p>\n

Car crime and burglaries are down about 80 per cent since the 1990s and homicide is down 40 per cent from its peak. Don\u2019t believe it? Well, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n

But see for yourself. Look up offence trends from the Office for National Statistics and read the Crime Survey for England & Wales (or the equivalents in Scotland and Northern Ireland), or indeed listen to any competent statistician.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
And with a general election looming, don\u2019t listen to the politicians. They, like journalists, cherry-pick the data. As I once did, they assume the solution to crime lies in harsher penalties or reducing poverty. Yet crime rates here and across the world don\u2019t correlate with the prison sentences or welfare budgets.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say we shouldn\u2019t have a compassionate society, and certainly not that offenders should simply be let off. I can\u2019t think of a single major case on Crimewatch where a substantial prison sentence wasn\u2019t warranted by the crime.<\/p>\n
But while for the first 10 years it seemed to us self-evident that catching crooks was the best way to stop them, that changed in the 1990s with the end of the post-war crime wave.<\/p>\n
When my colleague Jill Dando was murdered in 1999, the Crimewatch team and I, together with Jill\u2019s family and friends, raised money for a new school of research.<\/p>\n
$\"Jill$ \n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>