The Problems

Crime is one of the major problems in our society. Many of you say it is our No. 1 problem. Especially in our inner cities.

Whatever figures you look at - crime, especially violent crime - is on the increase. Crimes involving injury to the person have increased more than most. Firearms offences have risen dramatically; dozens of firearms offences are committed every day in Britain.

Murders were running at around 200 to 300 a year in the 1950s and 1960s. They rose to 600 a year in 1997. In 2002 there were 863; in 2003 over 1,000. Murders involving gun crime have sharply increased.

Drug crimes are running at 151,000 a year - and would be much higher if the government hadn’t made the decision to change the status of cannabis from ‘Class B’ to ‘Class C’ status. That reduced the drug crime figures but led to an increase in mental health problems, according to a number of mental health charities.

Britain has a relatively low prison population - but relatively high crime. The recent ‘Manifesto for Reform’ published by Reform said: “Britain sends relatively few people to prison compared to other countries, given its level of crime.

The experience of European countries suggests a link between high crime and low imprisonment. Britain and Sweden are both high crime countries with low rates of imprisonment- while Ireland, Spain and Portugal are low crime countries with high rates of imprisonment. As the think tank CIVITAS recently said: “The aim should be a low prison population because of a low crime rate, not a small prison population because of the crime rate”. Reform concluded: “The better way is to build more prisons if required, while improving custodial regimes and continuing to try to develop more effective non-custodial and semi-custodial punishments”. A firm policy of sentencing dangerous members of the community to prison for long periods has worked in the Unites States.

Police Officers are sick and tired of their enthusiasms and ideas for preventing and solving crime being rebuffed by out-of-touch, politically correct senior Police Officers. We need to make sure that the ones we’ve got use their time much more effectively to prevent, detect and prosecute crime

Our Solutions

Cut crime and anti-social behaviour by doing the following:

Working towards zero tolerance of all crime

Eliminating anti-social behaviour - drunken louts, those who threaten and verbally abuse others, people who deposit litter, and those who deface walls and property with graffiti. We’ll do that by dramatically increasing the penalties - and enforcing them There will be no ‘no-go’ areas in our Britain

Reclaiming the streets, which we have lost to criminal, anti-social yobs and gangs by giving the Police new powers to control groups of people on our streets, by arresting them or ordering them to disperse. The Police will be able to issue ‘Dispersal Orders’

Giving Police increased powers to arrest and detain those who are drunk and disorderly – or stoned and disorderly - on our streets. Locking up drunk or stoned people for 24 hours will soon reduce the numbers of them on our streets. We simply cannot go on burdening our National Health Service with over 1 million A & E admissions a year for incidents involving drink and drugs

Giving Police new powers to randomly check people for drug abuse if they have a reasonable suspicion that someone is under the influence of drugs

Radically overhaul policing by doing the following:

Making the Police accountable to their local communities. We will have locally-elected Police Committees in each local district, town or borough, with the public having the right to attend meetings and put their concerns directly to the Police

Cutting Police paperwork drastically - we’ll free them from red tape in the Police station and free them from unnecessary burdens imposed by the Human Rights Act.

Re-opening many local police stations which will stay open 24 hours a day

Keeping County constabularies which are more efficient and more responsive to local people

Requiring Chief Police Officers to maximise the visible presence of uniformed officers in all communities

Paying for any extra Police Officers we need to make our communities, towns and cities safe.

Because we will succeed in our aim of cutting Police red tape we won’t need all the extra officers other parties say we need.

Ensuring that Police have the back-up, civilian staff they need to do their job

Stopping the government exercising control over operational decisions Policing in this country has been by consent. Police forces have always been independent. We will return that independence to them

Reform the Criminal Justice System by:

Ensuring that householders can protect themselves from intruders without fear of prosecution, unless they use ‘grossly disproportionate force’ ensuring that offices, shops and business premises are similarly protected from intruders

Reviewing the operation of the Crown Prosecution Service to see if it is working properly. This review would consider the option of returning responsibility for prosecutions to the Police. Many people say things worked better when prosecutions were in the hands of the Police, as they are in many other countries.

Tackle Terrorism by:

Immediately deporting any foreigner who is convicted or reasonably suspected of terrorist activities, regardless of any possible risk to them in the countries they came from.

Banning people from belonging to - or closely associating with - known terrorist groups - just as membership of the IRA is illegal in the Irish Republic and in Britain. We need for example to break up Islamist groups in Britain which support terrorism and raise funds for terror groups Continuing to co-operate with international security agencies in detecting and preventing terrorist activity - and prosecuting those arrested for it

Introduce deterrent sentencing, including:

Ensuring that punishments of offenders are appropriate to their crimes

Ensuring that those guilty of serious or repeated offences are imprisoned for appropriately long periods to protect the public

Ensuring that offenders serve the full sentences imposed by the Courts. If you do the crime, then you’ll serve the time. Life will mean life. Good behaviour in prison will be rewarded by not having your sentence extended. Bad behaviour in prison will result in your prison term being lengthened

Allow judges to be able to lock up the most dangerous paedophiles for life - because experience shows that those who commit sexual offences against children are likely to do so again

Allow judges to sentence people-traffickers to life and confiscate their assets

Hold an urgent and complete review of sentencing policy, including a review of punishments for financial offences such as non-payment of Council Tax and social security fraud, where we need effective non-custodial sentences. Judges should have the power to punish people on social security benefits by cutting their benefits

Build more prisons and reform them:

Provide sufficient prison places for all adults sentenced. That means, for the foreseeable future, building more prisons Reform prisons by:

(a) increasing the resources available to provide real work and training for prisoners, so that we reduce the role of prisons as ‘crime academies’

(b) developing an imaginative new ‘citizenship training’ regime for young offenders, which will give them the knowledge and skills that they need to become responsible citizens and stay out of trouble.

Popular Alliance – A Fresh Light On Politics