27
Apr
2015
By Calvin at 14:55 GMT, 8 years ago
I’ve been looking at the political party manifestos for law and order today focussing on crime prevention, victims and the Police and Crime Commissioners. As far as ‘crime prevention’ is concerned I was specifically looking for promises about removing the opportunity to commit crime, because I operate a website that focuses on that aspect of crime prevention. I appreciate that there are numerous ways in which we can reduce crime, such as better detection rates, sentencing policies, rehabilitating offenders and social crime prevention measures, including education to deflect potential offenders and all the political parties list the measures they would take if elected. I’ve provided links to five of the parties’ manifestos standing for election in England so you can see what these are for yourself.
Here’s what they say specifically about removing the opportunity to commit crime:
Labour: Believes in proactively preventing crime
Conservative: Will develop a modern crime prevention strategy to address key drivers of crime. Will publish standards, performance data and a ranking system for security of smartphones and tablets and online financial and retail services
Liberal Democrats: Will design out opportunities for crime, by improving built environment, the design of new technologies, and community resilience.
UKIP: Couldn’t find a reference to crime prevention (by my definition)
Green Party: Improve the design of our cities to provide safer streets and public spaces.
It’s disappointing that neither of the larger parties specifically mention designing out crime from new homes, given that this is the most efficient way to remove the opportunity for crime and it is surprising that the Green Party haven’t been more specific about new homes either. Designing in crime prevention measures reduces our carbon footprint, because fewer crimes will take place and things like burglar damaged doors and windows won’t need to be replaced. The Liberal Democrats have covered all angles of designing out crime, both macro and micro, whilst the Conservatives have focussed on the micro end. Labour were very supportive of designing out crime the last time they were in government, but I could find no mention of it in their 2015 manifesto.
Police and Crime Commissioners:
Labour: Abolish
Conservative: Develop their role
Liberal Democrats: Scrap
UKIP: Reduce number in line with reduction of police forces
Green Party: Abolish
It looks like the PCC’s continued existence is on a knife edge. I live in London, so have no direct experience of the work of the PCCs, but five years does seem to be a rather short period for this experiment. If they stay it will be interesting to see how many people turn out to vote for them.
Victims
Labour: Enact Victims’ Law
Conservative: New Victims’ Law
Liberal Democrats: Enact Victims’ Bill of Rights
UKIP: Interests of law-abiding citizens and victims to take precedence over those of criminals
Green Party: Give a voice to victims
Whichever party or parties will be in government after the election it looks like we’re going to get a new Victim’s law – Good!
Links to Manifestos
Green Party: (There might be a little delay on download)
