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[Ian G Batten]

On Wed, 12 Mar 2003, Roland Perry wrote:

> In message <20030312152713.GE1422@elara.ftel.co.uk>, Ian G Batten 
> <I.G.Batten@ftel.co.uk> writes
> >The rate of conviction for white collar crime such as insider dealing or
> >stock ramping, wholesale drug trafficing and major terrorism is very,
> >very low and always has been.  Those are precisely the sort of crimes
> >for which data retention is being floated as a solution.
> 
> I thought the murder clear-up rate was quite high (and I'd hardly call 
> it a white collar crime).

No, nor would I, but I don't see your point.  Most killings are I
believe fairly obvious as to who did it --- they're not conducted by
fiendish master criminals.  It's only the deeply mysterious ones that
make the papers, 

[[ And the clearup rate is mediated by the decision that someone has
been killed.  A friend of mine was a friend of one of West's victims,
and was fairly convinced she had been killed at the point of her
disappearance in the early seventies.  It didn't become a murder until
her pitiful remains emerged from West's house.  None of West's victims
sat as unsolved murders at any point: they were missing persons, then
they were victims of a pretty-well solved murder inquiry. ]]


ian