28/08/07 - Crime, Time To Fight Back - Cllr Tomlinson

Crime - it’s time to fight back

Today, David Cameron has unveiled Conservative proposals to tackle Britain’s crime crisis. They are summarised below:

A full copy of them is available at: www.conservatives.com/pdf/britainscrimecrisis.pdf

Key messages

• Labour’s record on crime is their biggest broken promise. They have no effective response to the growing problem of crime and disorder on our streets. In the last few days, ministers have distorted statistics, hidden the truth and even congratulated on their response, claiming it is better than in America. Their attitude is arrogant, complacent and out of touch.

• It’s time to fight back against crime. Labour’s one-dimensional approach – relying on more and more legislation – has failed. In its place, Britain needs concerted action to get the police back on the streets; reform schools and the criminal justice system; and strengthen families and communities.

• We understand that crime affects all of us, not just a small number of people in a limited number of places. And we recognise that it is up to all of us to help fight it: politicians, police, parents, neighbours and businesses. Social responsibility is the way to restore the Social Covenant.

Our approach

Our main proposals for tackling Britain’s crime crisis are set out below:

In the short term, urgent measures are needed to restrict the capacity of criminally-minded individuals to commit crime. The measures we propose will have an immediate effect. So in government, we will:

• Scrap the detailed ‘stop form’ and allow police officers to stop and question an individual without making a written record.

• Reform the existing guidance for judges and magistrates to encourage them to use their powers to remove or delay young offenders’ driving licences – for anti-social behaviour in general, not just for driving-related offences as at present.

• Scrap Labour’s Early Release Scheme. Additional, emergency capacity must be found within the prison system, and through the use of prison ships or disused army camps, to hold prisoners until their official release date.

Beyond this, we need substantial reform of schools, the licensing laws, the police, the courts and prisons. We do not pretend these measures will have an instant effect: their benefits will be felt in the medium term. But they are a vital part of any serious crime-fighting strategy. So in government, we will:

• Review and reform current licensing law and statutory guidance to allow greater local discretion in the granting and renewing of licences.

• Make each police force accountable to an individual directly elected by the citizens of the police force area.

• Build more prison places.

• Create a dedicated border police force, with responsibility for protecting the UK from illegal immigration and smuggling.

• Repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a modern British Bill of Rights.

Ultimately, however, we will only achieve real and sustained reductions in criminality by addressing the long term: the social forces which either suppress crime or exacerbate it. Change is needed in the culture in which our young people grow up. So in government, we will:

• Use the tax and benefit system to support families.

• Review the regulatory framework relating to films and video games to ensure that violence is not directly promoted to young people.

• Reform welfare by allowing independent, commercial and voluntary organisations to take on the work of finding long-term jobs for unemployed people.

Our approach is based on what David Cameron has called the Social Covenant – founded on the firm belief that beating crime is not a job that can be left solely to the police, the courts and the penal system. The Social Covenant is the means by which we collectively take our stand against crime.

The individual has the right to protection from crime and from intrusive state control. In exchange, he or she undertakes to obey the law. This is a passive duty. But individuals also have an active duty, where appropriate, to prevent crime themselves. As parents, neighbours and local citizens, we all have a responsibility to help make our communities places of safety.

The state and criminal justice system undertake to enforce the law. In exchange, the police, courts, prison and probation services have the right to the full backing, financial and moral, of the Government and of wider society. Full support for law enforcement agencies, including where necessary the provision of information about crime, is a duty which falls on every citizen.

Society occupies the space between the individual and the state: it is represented in voluntary organisations and businesses. These institutions exist to provide vital services and support to individuals and families. Yet they are also protected by the state and they therefore have an obligation to the state – to sustain the values and promote the well-being of the nation as a whole.

Social institutions, including businesses, have a right to pursue their own objectives, including the objective of financial profit, free from government interference. In exchange, they have a responsibility to conduct themselves in ways which strengthen, rather than damage, the society of which they form part. No business should seek to profit by the celebration or encouragement of social breakdown.

The Government claims that violent crime is limited in scale and prevalence. In February this year, the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said that it was ‘a specific problem within a specific criminal culture’, and not indicative of ‘the general state of British society’ (BBC, Sunday AM, 18 February 2007).

The Government has a one-dimensional approach to crime-fighting: the use of legislation. Over 30 Criminal Justice Bills have been passed since 1997, and over 3,000 new criminal offences created – more than one a day. Yet in all this activity, there has been no proper reform of the police, no adequate prison-building programme, and no focus on reducing re-offending.

18 Teenagers Have Been Murdered in London This Year. At least 18 young people have been murdered in London this year alone. For example, in June, Sian Simpson, 18, was stabbed to death in Croydon following an argument involving a gang of 15 teenage girls.

Violent Crime Has Doubled under Labour (up 99 per cent). A total of over 1.2 million violent crimes were committed in 2006-7 (Home Office, Crime in England and Wales 2006-07, July 2007, Table 2.04).

Gun Crime Has Nearly Doubled under Labour. In 2006-7, a gun crime was committed every hour in England and Wales. The total number of firearms offences (excluding air weapons) has increased by 4,399 or 80 per cent (Home Office, Crime in England and Wales 2006-07, July 2007, p.63). The number of injuries and deaths from gun crime has risen fourfold in the same period (Home Office, Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2005-06, 25 January 2007, p.36). Knife Crime Is Rife. According to the British Crime Survey, knives were used in 7 per cent of all violent crimes in 2006-07, and in 20 per cent of robberies (Home Office, Crime in England and Wales 2006/07, July 2007, Table 3.05).

We Have One of the Highest Rates of Family Breakdown. The Social Justice Policy Group, chaired by Iain Duncan Smith MP, reported that the UK has one of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe, which it concluded is the number one cause of social breakdown. Over 70 per cent of young offenders come from lone parent families (Social Justice Policy Group, Breakthrough Britain, July 2007).

Cllr Justin Tomlinson, Prospective MP, Swindon North, "Labour's track record on law and order is nothing short of a disgrace.  With dishonest statistics and endless excuses, their attitude is arrogant, complacent and out of touch with the real world.  It is only the Conservatives who will get the police back on the streets; reform schools and the criminal justice system; and strengthen families and communities."