When I met up with Stephen and Tony last night one of the topics of conversation was muggings. This reminded me of a website, Crimestoppers-uk.org, that was launched recently “to provide a comprehensive record of current police appeals across the UK.” So popular was the launch of the site that it received over 200,000 hits within hours of opening, resulting in several hours of downtime as the operators struggled to cope with the traffic.

Anyway, so I decided to use this website to search for appeals in the Birmingham area… thus far there is only ONE hit within 25 miles of the Birmingham city centre area. So either the crime rate around here is INCREDIBLY low, or the website doesn’t have very much data yet. I’m guessing it’s the latter. Hopefully as more people become aware of the site and start to use it, it could become a valuable tool for both the police and citizens alike, but right now it still has a long way to go.