CrimeTony Blair said he would be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”. While many steps have been taken to penalise those convicted of crime more severely, little if anything has been done to tackle the real issue – the causes of crime.
So long as these causes remain, people will needlessly be the victims of crime. This
government tries to appear tough by locking up more people than any of our European neighbours and introducing draconian measures to penalise so-called “anti-social behaviour”. But little is done about corporate crime or tax evasion.
Respect rejects the approach of the three main parties on the essentials of law and order policy. They all argue that the solution is more police and more severe punishments. But this simplistic approach fails to do anything about the social deprivation, inequality and alienation that cause so much crime.
None of the established parties face up to the need to reverse a quarter of a century of economic and social policies which have broken up communities and weakened the bonds of social solidarity. The free market policies supported by the three traditional parties have produced entrenched deprivation side by side with great wealth.
These are the real “causes of crime”, but New Labour has not been nearly so “tough” on them as it promised to be.
The Home Office, which is responsible for law and order, has had the biggest percentage increase in funding of any Government department since 1997. By 2008 there will be at least 40,000 more police and community support officers than when Labour came to power.
Yet these steps do not lead to people feeling any safer or better about crime. England and Wales are the prison capital of the European Union with a record average incarceration rate of 141 people per 100,000 of the population. This outstrips the likes of Libya, Burma, Malaysia and Turkey.
Our courts are far more punitive than our closest European neighbours. France jails 93 people per 100,000 and Germany 98 per 100,000. Billions have been spent on police numbers and prisons, but none of this has made people feel safer or built more confident communities.
A new strategy is needed – one that does not repeat the failures of New Labour or the Tories.
Starved by government cuts of the human and financial resources to rebuild new and supportive communities, and tackle social exclusion, the situation in the most deprived areas has changed little in the years that New Labour has been in power.
Many people are still left feeling vulnerable to criminal activity. A huge amount of crime is linked to drugs. The only way to reduce the number of drug-related crimes is to treat the source of the problem, addiction, and to help those addicted to drugs off drugs and into a better life – not into prison.
Much more is need to rehabilitate drug offenders. Drug abuse needs to be treated as primarily a medical issue, as it was in Britain before 1971, when policy was changed and drug addiction then soared.
Respect will deal with crime by building strong communities, expanding youth facilities and improving public safety through measures such as employing more concierges on housing estates, investing in better street lighting, employing more staff on railway stations and in public parks.
Instead of spending billions on yet more police and more community support officers Respect would invest in community and youth workers and develop community strategies that will bring communities together on the basis of new hopes rather than the usual fears peddled by new Labour and the Tories.
RESPECT CALLS FOR:- A serious attack on the causes of crime.
- Build supportive communities and tackle social exclusion.
- More resources for drug treatment and rehabilitation.
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