People’s lives are being ruined by crime and they don’t feel safe in their own homes or theirvneighbourhood. Yet too many criminals are getting away without being caught or punished – and those who are caught are sent to prison and come out, unreformed, ready to commit more crimes. There’s an endless cycle that makes us all less safe. Governments are always talking tough but nothing seems to change.
Liberal Democrats are the only party which will cut crime because we will focus on what works. That means catching more criminals and making them pay for what they have done. It means making prison work to put them back on the straight and narrow, and involving communities in the fight against crime and anti-social behaviour. It means improving crime prevention and crime detection, which we know work to cut crime.
We will put 3,000 more police on the streets and we will make all police work better. We will give victims and local communities a major say in punishing offenders, and make sure there’s fair payback for neighbourhoods that suffer from crime. We will make prisoners work and pay into a Victims’ Compensation Fund.
KEY POLICIES
1. Catching criminals with 3,000 more police on the beat.
Everyone knows the way to cut crime is to catch people who commit crime – and we need more police out on the streets to do it. By scrapping pointless ID cards, we will pay for 3,000 more police, and cut bureaucracy so they’re out fighting crime not filling in forms. We will stop posturing on
penalties and concentrate on catching criminals. We will also make police work better by giving local people a direct say in policing and by tackling outdated or bad working practices.
2. Crack down on gun and knife crime.
We will make hospitals share information with the police so they know where gun and knife crime is happening. The police can then target these “hot spots” for stop and search to find these illegal weapons and destroy them. In Cardiff, where this model has been piloted, this practice has reduced violent crime by 40%.
3. Make prisoners work to pay compensation to victims.
It is only fair that criminals pay for the damage they cause. We will make prisoners work and contribute from their prison wages to a compensation fund for victims. At the moment, prisons are just colleges of crime. Making prisoners work (as well as educating and training them) will give them the skills they need to ‘go straight’ when they are released.
4. Justice in your neighbourhood.
We will give people a direct say in how petty criminals and those who engage in anti-social behaviour are punished in their area by setting up Neighbourhood Justice Panels, like the one run by Liberal Democrats in Somerset where
95% of offenders have been turned away from further crimes.
LABOUR
Labour promised to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, but they failed on both. Over a decade of posturing without action has not made people any safer. Only 1 in 100 crimes result in a conviction in court. The prison population has sky-rocketed but re-offending rates remain out of control. There is a violent crime every fifteen seconds in England and Wales and gun and knife crime has soared. Despite all this, police numbers are dropping and the Government instead intends to waste billions on the pointless ID cards scheme. By failing on crime, Labour has failed the people they promised to protect.
CONSERVATIVES
The Conservatives can’t be trusted to make you safe. Though they talk about change, they will just carry on with Labour’s failed policies. They will say anything. Some days they say they’ll hug a hoodie, other days they say they will lock them all up. They have promised to spend billions of pounds of your money on prisons that don’t make you safe because they don’t turn people away from crime. And chances are they will cut police numbers like the last time they were in government, when what we desperately need is more officers on the beat. You can’t believe a word they say about crime. Under the last Conservative government, crime doubled. A vote for the Tories is a vote for more crime.
KILLER FACTS
1. Only one in a hundred crimes results in a conviction in court.
2. 92% of young men serving a first short prison sentence re-offend within two years.
3. John Major promised 5,000 more police but the number of officers on our streets fell by more than 500.
4. Labour spends 8 times more on locking children and young people up than it does on projects to stop them getting involved in crime in the first place.
5. The Cardiff Model, where hospitals and police share anonymised data, reduced violent crime by 40% in its first five years of operation.
BASIC FACTS
1. There are 143,770 police officers across 43 police forces in England and Wales.
2. The police recorded 4.7 million crimes in 2008/09, but the British Crime Survey registered 10.7 million.
3. There were 651 murders in England and Wales in 2008/09.
4. There are around 83,000 people in prison.
5. In 1993, the prison population was 44,500